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BULLETIN OF THE UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS 
Vol. XXII November 1, 1921 No. 17 



Published semi-monthly from January to June and monthly from July to 
December, inclusive, by the University of Kansas 



HUMANISTIC STUDIES 
Vol. 11, No. 3 



INDIAN POLICY AND WESTWARD 
EXPANSION 

BY 

JAMES C. MALIN, PH. D. 

Assistant Professor of History 
The University of Kansas 



LAWRENCE, NOVEMBER, 1921 



Entered as second-class matter December 29, 1910, at the postoffice at 
Lawrence, Kansas, under the act of July 16, 1894 



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Vol. II V November I 1921 No. 3 



' INDIAN POLICY AND WESTWARD 
EXPANSION 



BY 



JAMES C. MALIN/Ph. D, 

Assistant Professor of History 
The University of Kansas 



LAWRENCE. NOVEMBER, 1921 
PUBLISHED BY THE UNIVERSITY 



COPYRIGHT 1922 

BY / 
JAMES C. MALIN 



©C1A655904 

JAN 18 1922 



Zo tf)c iWemorp 
of 

Mv Moti)tv 



i 

4 




I 



PREFACE 

This monograph is the outgrowth of a study of the life of 
David R. Atchison. Mr. Atchison was for some time chair- 
man of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs and the in- 
vestigation of his activity on that committee led to a study 
of Indian policy in the Trans-Mississippi Valley and its 
relation to the westward moyement. This latter problem, 
^ begun as a phase of Atchison's career in the. Senate, de- 
veloped into one that is larger and more significant than th^ 
original subject. The story here told is the history of the 
Indian policy up to the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act 
in 1854. It is written as concisely as possible to bring out 
the main thesis into clear relief. 

This history of Indian policy is of decided importance in 
tbe general history of the United States in the pre-Civil War 
period, but is of special importance in any attempt to write 
the history of the West. The purchase and conquest, explo- 
ration, fur trade, Indian wars, the Pacific railroad project, 
the extension of the frontier, schemes for the civilization 
of the Indians, etc., are topics in Western history which are 
more or less unrelated in the form in which they have usually 
been treated. Indian policy and its relation to westward 
* expansion now furnish a frame- work upon which the history 
of th-e Trans-Mississippi Valley before the Civil War may be 
written. The period is given a unity otherwise impossible 
and a foundation is laid upon which to base an interpreta- 
tion. The fact stands out clearly that the early history of 
the Trans-Mississippi Valley is essentially the history of 
the relation between the Indian and th^e advancing frontier 
placed in proper perspective with all the other related prob- 
lems. Thus, it becomes a distinctly new chapter in th-e 
history of the West. 

The period since 1854 presents a markedly different as- 
pect. The dominant theme in the earlier period is Indian 
policy, while in the latter it is the expansion of the frontier, 
the settlement of the Middle West. Here has been produced 



a white civilization which has taken the place of the Indian. 
In the process of its evolution it grew with much greater 
rapidity than the Indian receded, until it has almost com- 
pletely absorbed the remaining remnants of the Indians and 
their special problems. The result has been the creation of 
a new spirit, a new viewpoint or attitud e of mind, something 
distinct in itself, which is recognized as * 'Middle West." I 
hope later to present the history of this phase of the Indian 
problem in another study. 

I wish to acknowledge my indebtedness to Professor 
Frank H. Hodder, who has been friend as well as teacher, 
and that, when friendship has been of more value than any 
instruction could have been. Professor Frank E. M:elvin 
has made helpful criticism and suggestion. My wife has 
given invaluable aid in the revision and typing of the manu- 
script and in reading the proof. 

James C. Malin. 

1333 Ohio Street, 
Lawrence, Kansas. 



f 



CONTENTS 



INTRODUCTION 

Position of the Indian Country — Time during which problem 
developed — Factors determining Indian policy: Settlement of 
the Pacific Coast, Transcontinental lines of communication and 
transportation, Westward expansion in the Trans-Mississippi 
Valley, Changed condition and civilization of the Indians — Three 
phases in the development of the problem. 

Part One 

CONSOLIDATION OF THE INDIANS IN THE 
SOUTHWEST, 1830-40 

Relation Between Geography, Expansion, and Reloca- 
tion of the Indiana 15 

Original grouping — Expansion across mountains into Mississippi 
Valley, first wedge, 1770-1830 — General removal west of the 
Mississippi River, the spreading of the wedge, 1815-40 — Ex- 
pansion up the Missouri Valley, 1815-35 — Relocation of west- 
ern Indians in Indian Country, the spreading of the wedge, 
1830-55. 

Removal of the Indians West of the Mississippi River; 

First Phase 16 

Act of 1830 — General principles of Indian Policy — Cass's seven 
point program — Commission of 1832 — Legislative program of 
1834 — Execution of Cass program — Organization of the In- 
dian Department — Administrative regulations of 1834. 

Consolidation of the Indians in the Southwest; Sec- 
ond Phase 23 

Growth of the idea — Consolidation in the Southwest and plans^ 
for an Indian State — Indian Department and relocations to 1840 
— Commissioner Crawford's report of 1840 and tendencies in 
westward expansion — Reasons for selection of the Southwest 
for Indian relocations. 



Part Two 



FACTORS CONTRIBUTING TO THE REVISION OF 
THE OLD INDIAN POLICY 

Transition in Indian Policy, ISJ^O-JfS 35 

First settlements in Oregon — Oregon Trail, roads and military- 
posts — Santa Fe Trail and the southwestern commerce — Pur- 
chase of right of way for Oregon Trail recommended — Organi- 
zation of Oregon and Nebraska proposed — Effect on Indian 
policy. 

Development of the Four Great Factors, 18Jf8-5Jf W 

Westward Expansion and Settlement of the Pacific 
Coast 

Summary of early period — Population when organized — Oregon 
emigration after 1848 — California emigration after 1848 — Re- 
lation to Indian policy. 

Westward Expansion and the Pacific Railroad Move- 
ment AJp 

Routes — Buchanan on the Pacific railroad, 1S47 — Ewing on the 
Pacific railroad, 1849 — Stuart on the Pacific railroad, 1849 — 
Rivalry over routes — Beginnings of two Pacific railroads, Han- 
nibal-St. Joseph and the Pacific Railway — Land grants to Mis- 
souri railroads — Relation between men and measures. 

Westtvard Expansion and the Organization of Ne- 
braska 52 

Factors in movement — Douglas bill, 1848 — Father De Smet's an- 
alysis of the situation in 1851 — Consideration of a survey of 
Nebraska, 1851 — Hall's bills, 1851-52 — Legislative program of 
the House Committee on Territories, 1852-53, Richardson bill, 
Territory of Columbia bill and Road to the Pacific — Discussion 
and debates — Atchison-Benton contest in Missouri; Status of 
Indian title, 1854 — Popular interest in Nebraska; The Kansas- 
Nebraska Act. 

Changed Living Conditions and Civilization of the 
Indians 71 

Border tribes — Prairie and Mountain tribes. 



I 
I 



Part Three 



THE NEW INDIAN POLICY, 1848-1854 

Grouping of the Border Tribes 77 

Crawford's report, 1841, first statement of policy — Organiza- 
tion of Oregon and Nebraska, 1844-45 — Wilkins's Report, 1844, 
second statement — Grouping begun, 1840-48 — Treaties recom- 
mended — Medill's report, 1848, crystallization of new policy — 
Indian Department transferred to Department of the Interior- 
Orlando Brown's Report, 1849 — Case of Stockbridge Indians, 
1849, application of principle — Supt. Mitchell's Report on bor- 
der tribes, 1849 — Agent Barrow on Pawnees, 1849 — Lea's Re- 
port, 1850 — Lea's Report, 1851 — Mitchell's Report, 1851 — Agent 
Coffee's Report, 1851. 

The Prairie and Mountain Tribes 90 

The Elements in the situation, the prairie, the Indians, the tribal 
boundaries, Oregon and California and Santa Fe Trails, emi- 
grants and the Indians, emigrants and garnet supply. 

The Northtvest Tribes 91 

Supt. D. D. Mitchell — Growing discontent — Treaty recommended 
by Mitchell, 1849— Mitchell's treaty bill, 1850— Laramie Treaty, 
1851. 

The Southwest Tribes 9^ 

Santa Fe Trail — Railroad routes — Fort Atkinson Treaty, 1853 — 
Fitzpatrick's Report on purpose of treaty, Pacific railroad. 

Realization of the New Policy; Third Phase 96 

Nebraska movement, last phase — Debate on Richardson bill — 
Indian title in Nebraska Country — Preliminary negotiations for 
extinguishment of Indian title, 1853 — Manypenny's Report, 1853 
— Organization recommended — Fitzpatrick's Report, 1853 — Op- 
ening of Indian Country — Indian title extinguished, Jan.-June, 



1854 — Relations of treaties to railroads — Conclusion. 
BIBLIOGRAPHY 105 

MAPS 

No. 1. Land to which Indian title had been extinguished by 
1833 to provide for removal of tribes from east of the 
Mississippi River 25 

No. 2. Status of Indian title in Trans-Mississippi Valley 

before 1854 56 

No. 3. Land to which Indian title was extinguished 5 June, 

1854, and the northern and southern groups 102 



\ 



t 




Indian Policy and Westward 
Expansion 

Introduction 

pThe question of the relation of the government to the 
Indian has been ever present throughout the course of 
American history. The frontier has been continually en- 
croaching on the territory of the Indian, pushing him further 
and further west. With each step in the unfolding of this 
process new problems have had to be met and worked out. 
Sometimes the solutions have followed the lines of least 
resistance and sometimes they have followed definitely 
planned policy. The problems which presented themselves 
in the development of the Trans-Mississippi Valley have been 
of more than usual significance. This was because of the 
position of the territory in relation to the other states and 
territories, because of the critical time during which these 
problems arose and because of the character of the forces 
and interests demanding action. It is a new departure to 
approach the subject of Trans-Mississippi history from the 
standpoint of Indian policy, but it can be much better un- 
derstood if approached in this way ; that is, from the stand- 
point of the territory itself. From this vantage ground the 
play of outside forces can be watched as they press for 
solution of the problems, each of them interacting not only 
on the other, but also on the situation in the territory and 
the policy being developed there. 

The Indian Country of the Trans-Mississippi Valley has 
occupied a peculiar position in American development. By 
the Indian Country is meant the country west of Arkansas, 
Missouri and Iowa, north of the Red River and extending as 
far westward as the Rocky Mountains. It was generally un- 
derstood that this country was specifically set apart for the 



12 



University of Kansas Humanistic Studies 



habitation of the Indians, even though it crossed and blocked 
the natural lines of expansion to the Pacific. Of course this 
was not so important at the time the territory was set apart, 
but this had scarcely been done when the development of 
Oregon began, and then followed the annexation of Texas, 
the conquest and opening of California and the southwest. 
By this time its location had become a matter of decided 
significance. During the early period of Oregon settlement, 
the only route to the Pacific, lying wholly within our limits, 
was through this Indian Country. The growth of the Span- 
ish trade to Santa Fe over the Santa Fe Trail was a contem- 
porary movement and was carried on over routes which also 
ran through this territory. Then the acquisition of the Span- 
ish southwest only served to increase the traffic over these 
routes, and make more necesary the framing of definite ar- 
rangements regarding the situation. It was an anomolous 
situation indeed for a nation to be virtually cut in half ter- 
ritorially by the existence of a considerable district set apart 
wholly for the occupation of Indians and from which all 
white men were excluded, except missionaries and traders 
who went in only by special permission. Such an Indian 
policy was diametrically opposed to the forces then tending 
to a more complete national development. The progress of 
these forces could not be stopped and the government Indian 
policy must eventually be adjusted to their demands. 

The time during which these problems had to be solved 
added to the difficulty of the solution. During the earlier 
part of the period considered, the question of slavery and 
sectional rivalry had not become so acute and at that time 
had little influence on the situation. However, by the time 
of the annexation of Texas and the settlement of the Oregon 
question, sectional rivalry had become one of the dominant 
factors in any consideration of measures relating to west- 
ward expansion and even threatened to make impossible 
any solution of these problems. These difficulties could not 
but be reflected in the formulation and execution of Indian 
policy. 

There are four factors that stand out conspicuously as de- 



263] Malin: Indian Policy and Westward Expansion 



13 



termining forces in dictating the final policy in the Indian 
Country. The first, in point of time, was the movement for 
the settlement of the Pacific Coast. Interest in Oregon de- 
veloped earliest, but after the Mexican Cession in 1848 and 
the discovery of gold, interest in California superseded it. 
Second, the building of adequate lines of communication and 
transportation became of great importance. In the begin- 
ning the only method considered was by wagon roads, which 
must be built for emigrants, mail, express and freight. Later 
the railroad and telegraph were perfected and plans were 
made to utilize them in solving these problems. It was at 
just this time also that the American trade with the Orient 
was opened and it was hoped that the Pacific railroad would 
place the United States in a most advantageous position in 
respect to the development of that trade. Third, the west- 
ward expansion of population in the Trans-Mississippi 
Valley demanded the opening of more country to settle- 
ment. Lastly, the changes in living conditions of the Indians 
and the problems attending their civilization necessitated 
decided modifications in the policy pursued toward these 
people. The cumulative effect of these forces must ultimately 
bring about the organization of a territorial government 
for the Indian Country, in order to open it to white settle- 
ment and to make possible a continuous line of settled coun- 
try through to the Pacific. The passage of the Kansas- 
Nebraska Act in 1854 marks the culmination of this move- 
ment, for it made possible the realization of the ends toward 
which these forces tended. 

The complex character of the forces in process of evolu- 
tion during the period from 1830 to 1854 brought about such 
great and unexpected expansion and consequent changes in 
the lines of internal organization that no single consistent 
policy could be followed throughout the whole period. This 
does not imply that there was a lack of attention or of policy 
on the part of the government. Strictly speaking, policies 
were formulated from time to time to fit the new conditions. 
Taking the period as a whole, the Indian policy develops 
through three phases. The first two phases cover the period 



IJf. University of Kansas Humanistic Studies [26 Ji. 

to about 1841, and as they are less permanent in character 
they will be treated briefly. The first phase is the removal 
of the Indians to the region west of the Mississippi River and 
the formulation of general principles of policy and ad- 
ministration. The second is the evolution of the plan of 
consolidating the Indians in the southwest of the Indian 
Country to allow for westward expansion of the white 
population across the northern part. The emphasis, how- 
ever, will be placed on the latter part of the period, or third 
phase, when a new policy was worked out : one designed to 
allow the free development of the progressive factors just 
indicated. The purpose of this new policy was to group the 
Indian tribes to the north and to the south in the Indian 
Country in such a manner that they would not interfere with 
westward expansion in the country between the groups. The 
natural geographic lines of development, the Platte Valley 
and the South Pass, would be made available for the undis- 
turbed pasage of the emigrant to the Pacific Coast, for the 
building of adequate means of transportation and com- 
munication to the Pacific, and for settlement by white men. 
This policy determined the relocation of several Indian 
tribes and simplified the problem of extinguishing the 
Indian title when this part of the Indian Country was finally 
organized in 1854. 



PART ONE 



The Consolidation of the Indians in the 
Southwest, 1830-40 

GEOGRAPHY, EXPANSION, AND RELOCATION OF INDIANS 

The geography of the United States has had the greatest 
effect on the determination of the lines of advance of the 
American frontier and its relation to the relocation of the 
Indians. After crossing the Appalachian Mountain Range 
from the east, the natural line of emigration was down the 
Tennessee and Ohio valleys. The original grouping of the 
Indian tribes into the northern and southern confederacies 
also favored this, for it was the line of least resistance be- 
tween the groups. The advance of the white frontier may be 
likened to a wedge driven into the heart of the Indian 
Country. The point of this wedge pushed down the Ohio 
Valley, reaching the Mississippi River early in the century, 
and soon after began a period when this wedge spread north- 
ward and southward, crowding the Indians further and fur- 
ther apart, until about 1830 a policy of general removal of 
all tribes to the territory west of the Mississippi River was 
determined upon. While this process was going on east of 
the river, a second wedge was being driven up the valley of 
the Missouri River as far as the present western boundary of 
the state of Missouri. The spreading of this wedge was 
slower because it could not take place until the general re- 
moval from east of the Mississippi was pretty well carried 
out. But Missouri was the first of these states to be freed 
of Indians, this being effected by 1832.^ Iowa was practically 
free by 1846.^ The same process was being carried out in 



^ Abel, Indian Consolidation. Report of the American Historical Association, 
1906. Vol. 1, p. 395. 

^ Report of Indian Commissioner Medill, 1846. 2s. 29 C. Sen. doc. No. 1, pp. 
217-219. Pub. doc. No. 493. Cardinal Goodwin, The American Occupation of 
Iowa. In the Iowa Journal of History and Politics, XVII, pp. 83-103. The Move- 
ment of American Settlers into Wisconsin and Minnesota. Ibid. pp. 406-28. 



V 



I 



16 University of Kansas Humanistic Studies [266 

the other western states as the pressure of population de- 
manded. As these Indian tribes were removed from the 
eastern states, new locations had to be provided either by 
consolidation on reservations or by removal into the Indian 
Country to the west. 

REMOVAL OF INDIANS WEST OF MISSISSIPPI : FIRST PHASE 

It is not, however, the problem of Indian removal in itself 
that is of interest here, but the policy that was followed in 
the relocation of the Indians after they were removed to 
their new home west of the Mississippi River, and the pro- 
gram for their administration there. When the program of 
general removal was first considered, the plans for location 
were very vague. The most that can be said is that the 
Indians were to be sent to the far west beyond the Mississippi 
where they would never be disturbed again. Indeed the 
plans were so vague that the general act of 1830 providing 
for their removal does not indicate any particular place for 
their relocation, but leaves the choice to the discretion of the 
President. Section one of the act reads as follows : 

'That it shall and may be lawful for the Presi- 
dent of the United States to cause so much of any 
territory belonging to the United States, west of 
the river Mississippi, not included in any state or 
organized territory, and to which the Indian title 
has been extinguished, as he may judge necessary, 
to be divided into a suitable number of districts, 
for the reception of such tribes or nations of 
Indians as may choose to exchange the lands where 
they now reside, and remove there; and to cause 
each of said districts to be described by natural or 
artificial marks, as to be easily distinguished from 
each other. "-^ 

The dominating idea was to move the Indian completely out- 
side of the boundaries of all organized states and territories. 
Some Indian tribes had already been removed and others 
were to be removed as soon as arrangements could be com- 
pleted. 



' 4 U. S. Statutes, pp. 411-12. 



267] Matin: Indian Policy andWestward Expansion 17 



The plan of a general removal and consolidation of all 
tribes in one area placed the whole problem of Indian policy 
and Indian administration in an entirely new light. The 
government rather than the Indian had taken the initiative 
in the measures for consolidation. The responsibility was 
thus definitely placed on the government to formulate a pro- 
gram for handling Indian problems that would be active 
rather than passive, in order to make consolidation a success. 
Suggestions from various sources had been presented before 
the act of 1830 was passed and soon afterwards a quite de- 
finite program was announced. This program was the work 
of Lewis Cass, who was then Secretary of War, and appears 
in his annual report for the year 1831. These are what he 
calls the fundamental principles "which once adopted, would 
constitute the best foundation for our exertions, and the 
hopes of the Indians." : 

1. "A solemn declaration, similar to that al- 
ready inserted in some of the treaties, that the 
country assigned to the Indians shall be theirs as 
long as they or their descendants may occupy it, 
and a corresponding determination that our settle- 
ments shall not spread over it. . . . 

2. "A determination to exclude all ardent spirits 
from their new territory 

3. "The employment of an adequate force in 
their immediate vicinity, and a fixed determination 
to suppress, at all hazards, the slightest attempt at 
hostilities among themselves. 

4. "Encouragement to the severalty of pro- 
perty, and such provision for its security, as their 
own regulations do not afford, and as may be neces- 
sary for its enjoyment. 

5. "Assistance to all who may require it in open- 
ing farms, and in procuring domestic animals and 
instruments of agriculture. 

6. "Leaving them in employment of their own 
institutions, as far as may be compatible with their 
own safety and ours, and with the great objects of 
their prosperity and improvement. 

7. "The eventual employment of persons com- ^ 
petent to instruct them, as far and as fast as their 



18^ ■ University of Kansas Humanistic Studies [268 

progress may require, and in such manner as may 
be most useful to them."* 

The next step was to gather all the information possible 
regarding the country west of the Mississippi and the 
Indians inhabiting it. To accomplish this three commis- 
sioners, William Carroll, Montford Stokes, and Robert Vaux, 
were appointed in 1832 "to visit the several tribes west of 
the Mississippi, and to arrange the' various interesting and 
unsettled questions arising out of the new relations, which 
the system of emigration has created." Their instructions 
were dated 14 July and were signed by Secretary Cass. These 
instructions show that Cass expected their report to be the 
foundation of a really constructive policy. They are as fol* 
lows: 

"In the execution of the duty, respecting a plan 
for the government and security of the Indians, you 
will report in detail, all the information you can pro- 
cure concerning their present and probable future 
condition, which can be useful in the determination 
of the questions of their government and inter- 
course. Your own judgment aided by such informa- 
tion as may be afforded you upon the spot, must 
guide you in your views of this matter. Its im- 
portance is apparent, as on its decision, may rest the 
future fate of all these tribes ; and in the great 
change we are now urging them to make, it is de- 
sirable that all their political relations, as well 
among themselves as with us, should be established 
upon a permanent basis, beyond the necessity of 
any future alteration. Your report upon this branch 
of the subject will be laid before Congress, and will 
probably become the foundation of a system of 
legislation for these Indians."^ 

The report of this committee was submitted to Congress in 
1834 and was used by the House Committee of Indian Affairs 
in drafting their legislative program. 

It was in the year 1834 that the first complete legislative 



* Report of Sec. of War, H. doc. No. 2, Is. 22C. p. 30. Pub. doc. No. 216. Report 
of Sec. of War for 1832 gives additional comment on policy contemplated for the new 
Indian Country. H. doc. No. 2. 2s. 22C. p. 23. P\ib. doc. No. 233. 

5 Report of Sec. of War for 1832. H. doc. No. 2. 2s. 22C. pp. 32-37 Pub. doc. 
No. 233. 



S69] M alin: Indian Policy and Westward Expansion 



19 



was presented to Congress for consideration. At that time 
Mr. Everett (Vt.), who was then chairman of the House 
Committee on Indian Affairs, introduced three bills. The 
N first provided for the organization of the Indian Department. 
The second was an Indian Intercourse bill. The third was a 
bill to provide for the organization of a We^lPftfH (Indian) 
Territory.^ This last bill will be considered here. It was 
planned to establi^ IfRis Western Territory between the 
Red and Platte rivers west of Arkansas and Missouri. It 
was to be set aside for the exclusive use of the Indians in ful- 
fillment of the law of 1830. The government of the new ter- 
ritory was to be under the direction of the President. The 
chief executif^npi^er was to be vested in a governor, but the 
real powers of government were to be left in the hands of the 
tribes. It was contemplated that a confederation of the 
tribes would be formed and a general council was provided 
for. In case of hostilities among the tribes, the Governor 
was given power to suppress them with the aid of the 
Indian tribes or of the United States military power within 
program for the organization of Indian affairs in the west 
the Territory. Furthermore, the Territory was to be allowed 
a delegate on the floor of Congress, and eventually it might 
be admitted as a state in the Union. Mr. Everett stated his 
position frankly in the debate on the bill on 25 June. He said 
at that time, "The present policy of the government, in re- 
spect to the Indians, is to civilize them." This bill was de- 
feated although its two companion bills were passed.^ Such 
a plan as is here outlined would have carried out Case's pro- 
gram of 1831 with remarkable completeness. Although there 
may have been serious defects in certain details, it would 
have been an epoch-making step in the evolution of Amer- 
ican Indian policy. 

The two bills that did pass will next be considered in rela- 
tion to their contributions to the actual development of 
Indian policy. It must be admitted that this plan of pro- 

^ Cong. Debates. Is. 23C. X. Pt. IV. p. 4200. Introduced 20 May. The report 
of the above Committee was appended to report of House Comm. of Indian Affairs 
on bill. 

7 Cong. Debates. Is. 250. Pt. IV. pp. 4763-4779. 



20 



University of Kansas Humanistic Studies 



[270 



cedure was not complete, but the promises of the Cass pro- 
gram were at least partially fulfilled. In 1834 and in suc- 
ceeding years definite legislation was worked out on the 
subject. 

Part of the first point insisted on the guarantee to the 
Indians forever of the territory on which they were to be 
relocated. The Act of 1830 had authorized the President to 
give this guarantee in the treaties of removal he might 
make with them, and in each instance it was observed. The 
other part of the first point regarding the encroachment of 
the whites on the Indian Country was at least partially ful- 
filled by section two of the Intercourse Act of 1834. It pro- 
vided that no person should be admitted to the Indian Coun- 
try except by license from the Commissioner of Indian Af- 
fairs, and Indian agent, or sub-agent. Such license should be 
good for not more than two years in the country east of the 
Mississippi and three years west of that river.® This pro- 
vision should not be construed to be in the nature of a per- 
petual guarantee of land title to the Indians. Rather it was 
in the nature of a legislative regulation for administrative 
purposes. Point two of the program was fully covered by 
sections twenty and twenty-one of the above act. They pro- 
vided that no spirituous liquors should be sold in or taken 
into the Indian Country, except for the use of government 
officials under the direction of the War Department, and no 
distilleries should be set up in the Indian Country. Point 
three of the program was the problem of insuring peace in 
the Indian Country and adequately defending the western 
frontier. The plans for its execution were under considera- 
tion for several years. Various proposals were presented. 
The first was the report of the committee appointed in 1832 
which was presented to Congress in 1834.^ The bills provid- 
ing for the organization of an Indian State also included 
plans, but the most elaborate and complete proposal was 
that of General Gaines.^^ The principal feature of these pro- 
posals was to build a definite line of forts from the Red 



8 4 U. S. Statutes, pp. 729-35. 

9 See above, p. 18. 

10 H. doc. No. 311. 2s. 25C. 1838. Pub. doc. No. 329. 



271] Malin: Indian Policy and Westward Expansion 



21 



River extending northward into Minnesota, together with a 
system of military roads to connect them and to afford con- 
venient and rapid transportation of troops and supplies." 
None of these proposals were adopted as a unified plan of 
legislative action. However, the actual necessities of the 
situation did develop a fairly complete line of forts along the 
frontier ; Fort Towson, Fort Smith, Fort Gibson, Fort Scott, 
Fort Atkinson, Fort Dodge, Fort Snelling, etc. The prin- 
cipal fort on the Oregon Trail w^as Fort Laramie and on the 
Santa Fe Trail, Fort Atkinson, located near what is now 
Dodge City, Kansas. Two special mounted regiments were 
raised to defend th» frontier and finally in 1846 a bill was 
passed creating a regiment of mounted riflemen and pro- 
viding for a line of military posts to defend the route to 
Oregon^^ Point five was provided for in a limited way by 
the act of 1834 for the organization of the Indian Depart- 
ment by which authorization was given to furnish domestic 
animals and agricultural implements to the Indians west of 
the Mississippi River, but the value of such animals and 
implements furnished to those tribes was not to exceed 
$5000.^^ According to point six the Indians were to be al- 
lowed their own institutions so far as possible. This prin- 
ciple was recognized in practically all proposed legislation. 
The Intercourse Act of 1834 provided that in all disputes 
between white men and Indians concerning property the 
burden of proof must lie with the white man. The criminal 
law of the United States was extended over the Indian 
Country, but was not to apply to crimes between Indians.^* 
The last point of the program was recognized in the act of 
1834 for the organization of the Indian Department, and 
provided that blacksmiths, mechanics, and teachers, when 
employed under treaty stipulations, should be under the 
direction of the department.^^ 

Another phase of the program on the part of the gov- 



The most accessible map illustrating one of these plans is given in Folio State 
Papers, Military Affairs, VII, p. 777. 

^ Act of 1832. 4 U. S. Statutes, pp. 533-35. '"~Aet of 1833. Ibid. p. 652. Act of 
1844. 5 U. S. Statutes, p. 654. Act of 1846^4^ U. S. Statutes, 1846, ch. 22. 

" 4 U. S. Statutes pp. 735-38. 

1* Ibid. pp. 729-35. 

15 Ibid. pp. 735-38. 



22 University of Kansas Humanistic Studies [272 

eminent for handling the new situation was the reorganiza- 
tion of the Indian Department. Up to this time Indian affairs 
had been in the hands of a Chief Clerk of the Indian Office in 
the War Department. In 1832 the new office of Commis- 
sioner of Indian Affairs was created^^ Next, provision was 
made in an act of 28 June, 1834, to attach the Upper Mis- 
souri Territory to the Territory of Michigan for the purpose 
of temporary government. This included all the country west 
of the Mississippi River north of the State of Missouri and 
north and east of the Missouri and White Earth rivers.^" A 
bill passed during the same year for the organization of the 
Indian Department provided that the duties of the Governor 
of Arkansas Territory as Indian Superintendent should cease.' 
The same provision was also to apply to the Governor of 
Michigan Territory in the country west of Lake Michigan 
when that country should be organized into a territory. A 
new office of Superintendent of Indian Affairs was created, 
to be located at St. Louis, and was to have jurisdiction over 
the Indian Country west of the Mississippi River.^* During 
the same year the Secretary of War issued new regulations 
under authority of this act which defined more definitely the 
boundaries of the new administrative divisions. There were 
to be three Indian Superintendents in the west. The Mich- 
igan Superintendency included all that territory with the 
addition of the Upper Missouri Territory as indicated 
above.^^ The St. Louis Superintendency included all the 
western territory between the Michigan Superintendency 
and the Santa Fe Trail. The Western Superintendency (act- 
ing) was to include all the remaining territory south of the 
St. Louis Superintendency.20 Lastly, the Intercourse Act of 
1834 gave the name of Indian Country to all the territory of 
the United States west of the Mississippi River (except Mis- 
souri, Louisiana, and Arkansas Territory) and also that part 



i« 4 U. S. Statutes p. 564. 
" Ibid. p. 701. 

18 Ibid. pp. 735-38. 

19 Except the Prairie du Chien and Rock Island agencies, which belonged to the 
St. Louis Superintendency. 

20 Sen. doc. No. 1. 2s. 23C. p. 258. Pub. doc. No. 266. 



^3] Malin: I ndian Policy and Westward Expansion 28 

east of the Mississippi not in any organized territory for the 
purpose of that act.^^ 

CONSOLIDATION OF INDIANS IN SOUTHWEST : SECOND PHASE 

In the preceding pages the first phase of the Indian policy, 
that is, the removal of the Indians west of the Mississippi 
and the formulation of the general principles of a policy for 
administration, has been summarized. Next will be con- 
sidered the second phase, the selection of a definite location 
for the Indians and the removals to it. 

Nothing in the foregoing statements indicates that there 
was any intention in the beginning of limiting the territory 
to be used for Indian locations to any particular section of 
the west. However, a general understanding was soon quite 
definitely established that the Indians should be located in 
the southwest. The Indian missionary Isaac McCoy writing 
in 1831 traces the development of thought along that line 
as follows : 

"Early in the progress of this business, a question 
arose as to the most eligible location for the settle- 
ment. Under the administration of Mr. Monroe, - 
the territory between Lake Michigan and the 
Mississippi river was spoken of as a suitable place 
for, at least, a portion of the tribes. Since that time, 
the choice of public authority has become undivided, 
and has settled down upon the region west of the 
Arkansas Territory and west of the state of Mis- 
souri, as far north as the Missouri river, and upward 
on the southwest of that river, embracing a country 
about six hundred miles from south to north, and 
two hundred miles in width.^^z 

(The act of 1830 provided that the original Indian title 
must be extinguished in the territory west of the Missis- 
sippi before eastern Indians could be located there. This had 
already been done in most of the territory now included in 
the states of Oklahoma and Kansas, and by 1833 it was com- 
pleted in the remaining territory as far north as the Little 



21 ^ ■jj Statutes p. 729 

22 Address to philanthropists in Washington, D. C. and quoted in Isaac McCoy, 
History of Baptist Indian Missions, p. 432. 



Sj^. University of Kansas Humanistic Studies 

Nemaha and Platte rivers.^^ It was in this territory between 
the Red and the Platte rivers that the eastern Indians were 
to be relocated, and at no time before the opening of Kansas 
and Nebraska was the Indian title extinguished in any of the 
country to the north of this. This fact further limited the 
region which was considered as permanent Indian country. 
The northern limit as McCoy had indicated it in 1831 was 
the Missouri River, now it was the Platte. 

The same act authorized the President to guarantee to the 
Indians and their heirs forever the lands assigned to them 
west of the Mississippi in exchange for lands held by them 
east of that river. Contrary to the usual assumption, there 
was no guarantee to the Indians on the part of the govern- 
ment of perpetual possession of the lands north of the 
Platte. Neither was there any such guarantee for the land 
south of that river, except for such lands as were used for 
relocation of Indians and definitely assigned to them by 
treaty under the act of 1830 and supplementary acts. 

In his annual message for the year 1835, President Jack- 
son gave definite recognition of the principle of consolida- 
tion in the southwest. It contains the following statement : 

"A country west of Missouri and Arkansas has 
been assigned to them, into which the white settle- 
ments are not to be pushed. No political communi- 
ties can be formed in that extensive region, except 
those which are established by the Indians them- 
selves or by the United States for them and with 
their concurrence 

In connection with another project, the principle of limit- 
ing the Indian Country to the territory south of the Platte 
River was even more clearly planned. At various times 
schemes had been offered for creating an Indian State in the 
west.25 One of these proposals is presented in the report of 
the three commissioners sent out by the Indian Department 

*3 Quapaw 1818, Great and Little Osages 1818. 1825, Kansas 1825, Oto and 
Missouri 1833, Pawnee confederated tribes 1833. See Royce, Indian Cessions, 
18tb Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, Pt. II. 

Messages and Papers of the Presidents, III, pp. 171-72. 

25 See Abel, Proposals for an Indian State. 1779-1878. In Annual Report 
of American Historical Association. 1907. I, pp. 87-104. 



26 Unkersity of Kansas Humanistic Studies [276 

in 1832 to investigate and make a report on the condition 
of the Indians and plans for the administration of the 
country.2« This report was submitted to Congress in 1834 
by Commissioner of Indian Affairs Elbert Herring and on 
this point proposed to make the south bank of the Missouri 
and Platte rivers the northern boundary of the proposed 
territory. These boundaries were incorporated in the bill 
presented on 20 May of that year by the House Committee 
on Indian Affairs and the report of the department commit- 
tee was appended to their report on the bill to the House." 
As this bill failed to pass, another of similar character was 
presented in 1836. In this second bill the northern boundary 
was extended northward as far as the Puncah River.-^ In 
its other features it was similar to the preceding bill. This 
bill also failed. The Indian Department, however, did not let 
the matter drop there, but presented the subject to as many 
tribes as possible during the summer of 1837 and received 
the assent of several.^^ In the next session another bill was 
presented from the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs by 
Tipton of Indiana.^*^ This measure also provided for making 
the Puncah River the northern boundary of the Indian Ter- 
ritory, but it was explained that the only reason for includ- 
ing any country north of the Platte was to allow the Ottoes, 
Omahas, and Pawnees, who lived in that district, an oppor- 
tunity to participate in the advantages of the new terri- 
tory.21 

The debate on this bill brought out some very interesting 
and significant information in regard to the forces support- 
ing and opposing the measure and the motives directing the 
men who were interested in it. In the Senate, Mr. King of 



26 See above, p. 19. 

27 See above, p. 19, 

Report of Commissioner of Indian Affairs C. A. Harris. 1836. H. doc. No. 2. 
2 Session, 24 Congress, p. 376. Pub. doc. No. 301. The Pimcah River is now calldd 
Puncah Creek and is located between the Niobrara and White rivers. 

29 Report of Commissioner of Indian Affairs C. A. Harris. 1837, 2 session. 25 
Congress. Pub. doc. No. 314, and in debates in the Senate. Tipton's speech 18 
April 1838. Appendix Congressional Globe. 2 session. 25 Congress pp.. 269-74. 
(Hereafter the following form will be used: C. G. 2s. 250 The tribes who as- 
sented were the Delawares, Shawnees, Kickapoos, Pottawatomies, Sauks of Mis- 
souri, lowas, Weas. Piankashas, Peorias and Kaskaskias, Kansas and Ottawas. 
C. G. 2s. 2oC. p. 41. Introduced 20 De'^ember, 1837. 

31 Tipton's speeches. Appendix C. G. 2s. 25C. pp. 269-74, and C. G. 2s. rSC. p. 
348. 



277] Malin: Indian Policy and Westward Expansion 27 



Alabama offered an amendment to enlarge the proposed 
territory by adding to it all the country west of the Missis- 
sippi and north of the State of Missouri and the Missouri 
River and west as far as the Rocky Mountains, except land to 
which the Indian title had already been extinguished. Fur- 
thermore the faith of the United States was to be pledged 
by the act to guarantee to the Indians forever all the land in 
this territory granted to them.^^ Sevier of Arkansas favored 
the amendment chiefly for reasons based on sectionalism. He 
charged that the original bill was merely a plan on the part 
of the north to get more states in the northwest. Linn of 
Missouri and Lumpkin of Georgia opposed the amendment. 
Linn read extracts from a memorial of the Missouri Legisla- 
ture in which they urged the formation of an Indian state 
along the lines of the original plan. Lumpkin attacked the 
amendment on account of the sectional character it gave, to 
the whole measure. He pointed out that two thirds of the 
territory included in the original bill lay north of the line of 
36° 30' and as all the land south of that line was already 
taken up by Indians, no northern Indians could be moved 
south of it. The south could have no just complaint against 
the measure. The addition of all the country north to the in- 
ternational line would make the territory so vast that it 
would defeat the whole purpose of the bill. The original 
measure is similar to the proposal made by Calhoun in 1835. 
Why did Calhoun now withhold his support of the measure ? 
Lumpkin said that for himself this measure was just what he 
had been advocating for the past ten years.^^ However, the 
main debates were led by King and Tipton. In defending his 
amendment, King insisted that the plan of the northern 
men was to crowd all the northern and southern Indians into 
the southwest to block the development of the south and to 
make possible the opening of the whole country north of the 
Missouri Compromise line to white settlement. Sevier was 
right in saying that it was merely a plan to get more states 
in the northwest. He regretted that his southern friends 



32 C. G. 2s. 25C. pp. 345-48. 

33 Ibid. pp. 340-45. 



28 University of Kansas Humanistic Studies [278 

were so indifferent to the future. Then he asked Tipton a 
question. Would he oppose the amendment if he believed 
that there would be no more states formed in the northwest ? 
Tipton insisted that the amendment would effectually check 
the growth not only of the northwest but of the nation, and 
in answer to King's last question he said : "To this, I answer 
in the affirmative. I have many friends and acquaintances 
in that country west of the Mississippi River, who desire to 
form a state at no distant day, and I wish to gratify them. 
Does the honorable senator expect to check the growing 
power of the Northwest? Sir, he might as well attempt. . . 
to stay the current of the Niagara, as to prevent the emigra- 
tion of the industrious, intelligent and enterprising people 
from all parts of the United States to the Iowa Territory, 
west of the Mississippi."^^ When the amendment came to a 
vote it was defeated 11 to 22. The vote was for the most 
part sectional, the only votes cast for it coming from the 
southwestern and southeastern states.^^ 

At the same time that the above bill was under discussion 
another measure of great importance to the development of 
the west was before both houses. On 6 February in the 
House and 14 March in the Senate bills were presented pro- 
viding for the division of Wisconsin Territory and the es- 
tablishment of "The Territory of Iowa." Consideration of 
the bills was delayed until June. In the debate Waddy 
Thompson of South Carolina attacked the measure. It was 
again a question of the balance of power between the north- 
ern and western and the southern states on the slavery ques- 
tion. He would not consent to these territories coming into 
the Union so long as the northern states opposed the annexa- 
tion of Texas on the ground of slavery. However, the bill 
was passed and was approved 12 June, 1838.^^ This new 
Territory of Iowa included all the country between the 
Mississippi and Missouri rivers and north of the state of 
Missouri, in other words exactly the same country that King 

^ C. G. 2s. 25C. pp. 347-48. 

^ Yeas: — Merrick and Spence of Maryland, Roane of Virginia, Calhoun and 
Preston of South Carolina, Clay and King of Alabama, Mouton and Nicholas of 
Louisiana, and Sevier and Fulton of Arkansas. Nays: — Northern and border 
st^Tes and Georgia. 

36 C. G. 2s. 25C. pp. 239, 247, 424, 428. 131, 161, 5 U. S. Statutes pp. 235-41. 



279] Malin: Indian Policy and Westward Expansion 29 

had insisted, in the debate of 27 April, must be included in 
the proposed Indian Territory, and the passage of the act 
creating the Territory of Iowa was precisely what he was 
trying to prevent by his amendment. The trend of westward 
expansion was clearly shown, and the attempt of the radical 
southern group to block it by creating out of the northwest a 
permanent Indian Territory was completely defeated. 

The next question to consider in connection with the prin- 
ciple of consolidation in the southwest is the attitude of the 
Indian Depaiiment in planning the removal and relocation of 
individual tribes and the extent to which it was applied. 
Westward expansion brought about the addition of the Platte 
country to the state of Missouri in 1836. The Indians oc- 
cupying this countr>' had to be removed and the Secretary of 
War in 1836 reports that : 

"With a view to the extinguishment of the Indian 
title to the country between the State of Missouri 
and the Mississippi river, negotiations were opened 
\\ith the tribes interested therein for the relinquish- 
ment of their rights ; and treaties to that effect 
have already been concluded vdih the lowas and 
Sacs of Missouri, Omahas, Yancton Sioux, and 
Ottawas and Missouris. Measures have also been 
taken for opening negotiations with the united 
nation of Ottawas, Chippewas, and Pottawatomies. 
for an exchange of the lands north of the Missouri 
river assigned to them by the treaty of Chicago of 
1833, for lands south of that river; and with the 
Miamies, for a cession of their lands in Indiana. 

At the same time there was a movement to extinguish the 
title to the lands held by the Indians of western Iowa. The 
Commissioner of Indian Affairs reports that a Senate resolu- 
tion 

''requested the President to propose to the Indians, 
parties to the treaty of Chicago, an exchange of the 
lands north of the Missouri river; assigned to them 
by that treaty, for lands south of it. As no appro- 
priation was made for this object, and a part of the 
Indians had emigrated, a part were removing and a 
part were in Illinois, the instructions to the sub- 



^' H, doc. No. 2. 24C .p. lis. Pub. doc. Xo. 301. Theiraiics are the author's. 



so University of Kansas Humanistic Studies [280 

agent merely directed him to seek interviews with 
them."^« 

In his report for the next year Commissioner Harris made a 
clear and definite statement on the subject of Indian re- 
location policy: 

The operations of the Department include "the 
removal of the Indians in New York, Ohio, Indiana, 
Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin, in the north, the 
west, and the northwest; and in Georgia, North 
Carolina, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi and 
Florida, in the south and southwest, to new homes 
southwest of the Missouri river, 

The Secretary of War, Poinsett, in the same year, re- 
ported that the Winnebagoes had agreed to remove to the 
"neutral ground"*^ but their sojourn there would probably 
be temporary as it was planned to remove them south of the 
Missouri River as soon as the country was sufficiently ex- 
plored. He adds : 

"The interests of the country appear to require 
the existence of a line of frontier States between 
the Mississippi and the Missouri, and the extin- 
guishment of the Indian title to all the land east of 
the Missouri, to the 43° of north lattitude, would ef- 
fect that object."*! 

The result of such action would have opened to white 
settlement almost all of what is now Iowa as far west as the 
Missouri. This was not done immediately, but, as has been 
previously stated, Iowa was practically all opened by 1846. 

In 1840, Indian Commissioner T. Hartley Crawford dis- 
cussed the question of Indian removal in a larger way in his 
annual report and recommended the removal of even the 
most northerly tribes to the southwest. He considered it 
was necessary as the only solution of the continued Indian 



S8 H. doc. No. 2. Is. 24C. p. 382. Pub. doc. No. 301. The removal of these Indians 
w^s delayed for some years and did not take place until 1846. The italics are the 
author's. 

39 Sen. doc. No. 1. 3s. 24C. p. 525. Pub. doc. No. 314. The italics are the author's. 
In his report for the removal of the Menominees of that territory to the country 
south of the ^Missouri River. Ibid. p. 563. 

*® Western Iowa. 

" Sen. doc. No. 1. 2s. 24C. p. 184. Pub. doc. No. 314. 



^81] Malin: Indian Policy and Westward Expansion 31 

difficulties on the northwestern frontier. There was a 
tendency among the American Indians, as he pointed out, to 
cross the international line to the northward into Canada 
and the resulting complications were a continual source 
of friction with the British. The final solution of those dif- 
ficulties would be a complete removal of the Indians from 
the northern country.*- 

The preceding statements show how consistently and 
clearly this second phase of the Indian policy was developed, 
and how definitely the principle of consolidation of the In- 
dians in the southwest was recognized. In another part of 
the report for 1840 Commissioner Crawford predicted the 
developments that could be expected in the near future in 
the way of Indian removals and the opening of the new 
northwest to white settlement. He said : 

"It is sufficient at present to state, that the 
original title to the land to the southwest of the 
Missouri is extinguished as far north as the 
Little Nemaha river. There are located on it a large 
number of tribes ; and there yet remain northeast 
of the Missouri and east of the Mississippi rivers, 
who will soon require a new home'' several other 

tribes "The day is not distant, either, when the 

Sioux and other tribes will be asked to cede their 
lands. . . . All, probably, must soon emigrate."*^ 

The lands referred to in the above quotation would include 
most of the country between the Mississippi and Missouri 
rivers. The western part of it was occupied by the Sioux 
and Dakota Indians, the greater part of whose land lay west 
of the Mississippi. The white settlements were pushing up 
the upper Mississippi Valley and the Great Lake region, and 
up the northern bank of the Mississippi River from the state 
of Missouri.** They were also pushing across what is now the 



^ Sen. doc. No. 1. Is. 27C. p. 242. Pub. doc. No. 375. 

^ Report of Commissioner of Indian Affairs 1840. Sen. doc. No. 1. Is. 27C. p. 
232. Pub. doc. No. 375. Another interesting and significant development in this 
region is the making of a survey and map of the Platte and Missouri Valleys by the 
War Department. The map included the country from 39* to 45" north latitude, 
and from 90"* to 100° west longitude. The secretary urged in the report that the 
survey should be extended to the source of the Missouri River and then to the Pacific. 
Report of Secretary of War, 1840. Sen. doc. No. 1. Is. 27C. p. 24. Pub. doc. No. 375, 
The Platte purchase was added to the state of Missouri in 1836. 



University of Kansas Humanistic Studies 



[282 



state of Iowa toward the north bank of the Missouri. That 
river was still the main route to the far west and the chief 
outlet for the fur trade of that region. Mr. Crawford shows 
in his report that he understood and appreciated the ten- 
dencies then operating in the westward extension of the 
frontier and the geographical lines along which it would pro- 
gress under the influence of conditions as they then existed. 
The extinguishment of Indian title to the land was always a 
preliminary to the settlement of a new part of the country 
and this process was steadily and inevitably being realized. 
It was evident that this new northwest was soon to be settled 
by white men and divided into states. This would necessitate 
the removal and consolidation of the Indians in the south- 
west between the Platte and Red rivers. This principle of 
consolidation was recognized both by Congress and by the 
Indian Department and was thus being definitely and con- 
sistently developed to allow for the westward expansion of 
the white population across the northern part of the Indian 
Country toward the Rocky Mountains. 

The principle of the consolidation of the Indians in the 
southwest has been traced step by step through the decade 
of the thirties to show how that principle crystallized into 
a clearly defined policy to provide for a permanent home for 
the Indians. The reasons and motives operating in deter- 
mining the choice of that particular location were many and 
their action was often complex. Several of them are ex- 
plained in a report of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs 
in 1836 accompanying the bill to supplement the Act of 1830 
and providing for the establishment of an Indian Territory.*' 
The report stated that it was a country well adapted to 
grazing and lay within the latitude to which the Indians were 
accustomed, but more important still was the fact that it 
was west of all white settlements and would probably not be 
surrounded by white population because the country beyond 
it was considered uninhabitable. In the words of the report : 
"With this uninhabitable region on the west of the Indian 
territory, they cannot be surrounded by white population. 



45 See above, p. 26. 



S83] ' Matin: Indian Policy and Westward Expansion 38 

They are on the outside of us, and in a place which will ever 
remain on the outside." As the rivers of this region flow 
eastward, they would direct such commerce as the Indian 
country possessed to the white settlements. Another con- 
sideration of importance in maintaining order was that the 
Indians located there could not escape westward for safety 
from punishment after depredations they might commit.*® 
Still other reasons were brought out in the debates on the 
Indian Territory bills. Tipton pointed out the difficulties 
that had always arisen out of the contact of the northern 
tribes along the border with British influences. These would 
be effectively prevented only by removal and con- 
solidation in the southwest. But probably the most import- 
ant reason in determining that location was the influence of 
westward expansion which made necessary an outlet across 
the northern part of the country toward the mountains. 
Just at this time also, Senator Linn of Missouri was begin- 
ning his agitation in Congress for the recognition of the 
importance of Oregon and the encouragement and protec- 
tion of its settlement by Americans. Thus by the opening of 
the northwest the demands of northern expansion would be 
satisfied. At the same time the first movement for the 
annexation of Texas was under way and its success would 
satisfy the demands of southern expansion. This situation 
created a balance of power between the northern and south- 
ern expansionist forces which throws into clear relief the 
stand which Waddy Thompson of South Carolina took in the 
House debates on the Iowa Territory bill in 1838. He would 
oppose northern expansion into the Indian Country of the 
northwest so long as the north opposed southern expansion 
to the southwest by preventing the annexation of Texas. As H 
a result the problem of Indian location resolves itself into 
this; the Indians were to be limited to what was then the 
southwest because this was believed to be the only region 
where they would not block white expansion westward. 



^ Sen. doc. No. 246. Is. 24C. p. 4. Pub. doc. No. 279. 



9 




PART TWO 



Factors Contributing to the Revision of the 
Old Indian Pohcy 

(westward expansion was the dominating factor in deter- 
mining the development of the Indian Policy in the Trans- 
Mississippi Valley until about 1840. It exercised a decisive 
influence in the rearrangement and relocation of the In- 
dians, and had brought about the formulation of the policy 
for their consolidation in the southwest. By 1840 this con- 
solidation had been only partially completed, and after that 
date several new factors developed which were to modify 
completely this policy. It had been very satisfactory so long 
as it was merely a question of getting the Indians out of 
the way, of removing them "outside of us, and into a place 
which will ever remain on the outside." Howevfer, by 1848 
this Indian Country was no longer "on the outside of us." 
It was in the very center of the nation. It was evident that 
the policy which had once been considered as permanent 
had now to be revised completely to fit the new conditions. 

NATIONAL SELF-ASSERTION. 1840-1848. A TRANSITION 
PERIOD IN INDIAN POLICY 

The period between 1840 and 1848 is one which is best 
characterized as a period of National Self-Assertion. In 
such a term lies its truest interpretation. The public at- 
tention was almost wholly occupied with the solution of 
foreign issues which were of the greatest moment to the 
nation ; viz., the Oregon boundary, the annexation of Texas, 
the Mexican War and its resulting cessions of territory, and 
the establishment of commercial relations with China and 
other parts of the Orient. This focusing of attention on 
foreign questions was at the expense of the solution of 
purely domestic problems. Therefore, as in the case of 
other internal problems, there was little done toward evolv- 



S6 



U niversity of Kansas Humanistic Studies [286 



ing a constructive policy in Indian affairs to meet the new 
requirements. So far as Indian policy is concerned, it is 
a period of transition. Nevertheless, it is one which is 
vital to the whole problem, because in it lie the roots of 
the forces that were to bring about the revision of 
the old Indian policy and during it were laid the founda- 
tions on which this new policy was to be built. 

The Oregon question was the first of a series of develop- 
ments which brought out clearly and definitely the neces- 
sity of a change in the policy towards the whole of the In- 
dian Country. The chief route to Oregon, which became 
known as the Oregon Trail, followed the Missouri River 
through Independence or St. Joseph and thence across that 
river to the Platte Valley and thence along the south side 
of the Platte to Fort Laramie and thence by way of the 
South Pass westward to the valley of the Columbia. The 
first American settlers had gone to Oregon in 1834. The 
stream of emigrants had increased slowly until 1843 when 
it assumed considerable proportions. As early as 1838, 
Lewis F. Linn, Senator from Missouri, advocated the es- 
tablishment of stockades and military posts along the route 
for the protection of the emigrants. His first bill failed, 
but each year thereafter until his death in 1843 he put the 
question definitely before Congress in the form of a bill or 
resolution. His successor, David R. Atchison, immediately 
took up the agitation and he and Benton, with the aid of 
others, put through a bill in 1846 which provided for the 
establishment of a regiment of mounted ritonen and a line 
of military posts along the route to Oregonl^y This was the 
same year that the Oregon boundary questfon was settled 
with Great Britain. 

Another transcontinental route which was to have great 
influence on determining certain phases of Indian policy 
was the Santa Fe Trail. This became an important com- 
mercial route after the recognition of Mexican indepen- 
dence in 1822. Thomas H. Benton, the great champion of 
the west, took up the question almost immediately and was 



9 U. S. Statutes, 1846, ch. 22. 



287] Mcdin: Indian Policy andWestward Expansion 37 

able to secure the passage of a bill in 1825 providing for 
the appropriation of money to survey and mark the route 
and to purchase the right of transit from the Indians. The 
survey was made from Franklin, Missouri, to Taos, but the 
traders usually followed the more dangerous trail across 
the Cimmaron Desert. Negotiations were carried out with 
the Indians and a treaty was concluded with the Pawnees 
and Osages by which they agreed not to molest the caravans. 
The negotiations were unsuccessful with the Comanches. 
The traders were practically left to their own devices to 
provide for protection. However, the government did send 
out a military escort as far as the Arkansas Crossing on 
three different occasionVrrr«-29, 1834, and 1843. In 1843 
the Governor of New Mexico sent an escort to the Arkan- 
sas to meet the traders and protect them on the remainder 
of their journey through Mexican territory. The growing 
importance of this Santa Fe trade, especially after the an- 
nexation of New Mexico, and the possibility of its^use as a 
railroad route, made necessary the establishment ^of more 
definite relations with the tribes along this route. 

While the Oregon agitation was going on in Congress, 
certain members of the Indian Office had been advocating 
a more effective means of meeting the difficulties created by 
the Oregon emigration. The Santa Fe Trail treaty was 
cited as precedent for action of a similar nature for the 
Oregon Trail. Thomas H. Harvey, Superintendent of the 
St. Louis District, in his annual report of 1845 urged that 
the government buy a right of way through the Indian 
country : 

"For the safety of the emigrants and the tran- 
quility of the Indians, I would suggest that a right 
of way through such sections of the Indian country 
as may be deemed most convenient for laying out 
roads to Oregon be purchased from the Indians 
owning the country. This was done with the Osages 
and Kanzas, when laying out the road to Santa Fe. 
In that event the emigrants would be obliged strictly 
to confine themselves to the roads so purchased and 
laid out. With a view to carrying the foregoing 
into effect, I would respectfully recommend the es- 



38 



University of Kansas Humanistic Stvdies 



[288 



tablishment of the following roads or routes; viz: 
one to cross the Missouri river at St. Joseph, which 
would pass through the Kickapoo, Iowa and Sac and 
Fox countries ; another to cross the same river at 
Council Bluffs, and passing through the Potawa- 
tomie, Ottoe and Pawnee lands ; and a third, f rx)m 
Westport, on the south side of the Missouri river, 
passing through the lands of the Shawnees, 
Delewares and Kanzas."*^ 

His recommendation was not acted upon and the next 
year he repeated it, but this time instead of merely suggest- 
ing that a right of way be purchased, he called ''the atten- 
tion of the Department to the necessity of it."^^ This recom- 
mendation had no greater effect than the first- It would 
have been neither difficult nor expensive to have made this 
purchase, because the Indian title to most of the territory 
on the south side of the Platte River through which the main 
routes ran was already extinguished as far west as the 
mountains and only a narrow strip along the Missouri and 
Nemeha rivers had been regranted to eastern Indian tribes. 
The Pawnees, however, w^ho were to have removed north 
of the Platte, still occupied the country south of that river 
owing to the pressure of the Sioux to the north of them as 
the government had not established sufficient military 
forces in the Indian Country to insure their safety on their 
own lands. 

The first attempts to organize Oregon Territory included 
or were contemporary with the first attempts to organize 
a part of the Indian Country. The existence of this close 
relation has been persistently overlooked. In the Senate, 
Atchison of Missouri introduced a bill on 19 December, 1844, 
for the organization of Oregon, which included the Indian 
Country, that is all the territory between the Missouri River 
and the Rocky Mountains, and in addition provided fo^ 
stockades and forts to be built along the route to Oregon 
from the Missouri River by way of the South Pass to Ore- 
gon. At the same time Douglas, in the House, introduced 



^ Sen. doc. No. 1. Is. 29C. p. 536. Pub. doc. No. 470. 
49 Sen. doc. No. 1. 2s. 29C. p. 286. Pub. doc. No. 493. 
^ Ex. doc. No. 1. 2s. 30C. pp. 388-90. Pub. doc. 537. 



^89] Malin : Indian Policy and Westward Expansion 



39 



a bill for the organization of Nebraska Territory. It de- 
fined the territory as the country between the parallels of 
thirty-eight and forty-three. However, these bills did not 
come up for consideration in either house.^^ But in the next 
session Douglas introduced a bill similar to the Atchison 
measure of the preceding year. This measure provided for 
the organization of a temporary government and included 
within the limits of Oregon the Indian Country west of the 
Missouri River between the parallels of forty and forty- 
three, and extended over it the jurisdiction of the Supreme 
Court of loAva and the laws of that Territory.^- The fact 
that these provisions affecting the Indian Country were in- 
cluded in the bills, whose purpose was to create a govern- 
ment for Oregon, indicated clearly that they were not de- 
signed primarily to organize the Indian Country, but rather 
to provide an outlet to the valley of the Columbia through 
organized country which was to be settled by white men. 
Also the fact should be emphasized that it was through this 
region, the valleys of the Missouri and the Platte rivers, 
that the best routes to the Pacific were to be found. Hence 
it was only natural that, with the enormous increase of mi- 
gration westward and the pressure of the frontier^ ettle- 
ments, this country should soon be opened to the pioneer, 
even though the annexation of Texas and the addition of 
the Mexican cession soon created a strong diversion toward 
the southern routes and expansion along them toward Cali- 
fornia. Douglas's own explanation of his early bills to or- 
ganize Nebraska was that they were to serve notice on the 
Secretary of War not to locate any more Indians there. *'In 
consequence of this notice, the Secretary (by courtesy) sus- 
pended his operations until Congress should have an oppor- 
tunity of acting on the bill: and inasmuch as Congress 
failed to act at that session, Mr. Douglas renewed his bill 
and notice to the Secretary each year, and thus prevented 



=1 Atchison bill. C. G. Appendix 2s. 28C. p. 44. Douglas biU, C. G. 2s. 28C. p. 41. 
C. G. Is. 29C. p. 690. Parker's Calendar of Papers in the Washington Archives 
relating to the Territories of the United States, p. 319. Carnegie pub. No. 148. The 
original bill was Introduced 9 Dec. 1845 to protect settlers until the end of joint 
occupation. Amended to pro\'ide a territorial government. It passed the House 
18 April, 1846. Read in the Senate 20 April. 



Ji-O University of Kansas Humanistic Studies [290 

action for ten years, and until he could procure action on 

the mir^' 

The effect of these bills on the Indian policy would have 
been revolutionary had they become law. It would have 
meant the abandonment of the policy of consolidation of 
the Indians in the southwest, and instead would have di- 
vided them into two groups, one north and one south of the 
newly organized or settled territory. The chief motive be- 
hind these bills was the opening of Pacific routes and this 
fact must be remembered in the consideration of subse- 
quent development of Indian policy. 

PERIOD OF INTERNAL EXPANSION AND READJUSTMENT, 
1848-54-68. THE FOUR GREAT FACTORS 

The period between 1840 and 1848 has been character- 
ized as a period of national self-assertion. It brought in its 
train a multitude of new problems, especially in connec- 
tion with the newly acquired territory, and those together 
with the growing bitterness of the slavery issue in the old 
states as well as in the new territory created a crisis which 
was the supreme test of American Nationality. The per- 
iod from 1848 through the Civil War was one of internal 
expansion and readjustment and its problems had to be 
worked out in the face of ever increasing sectional rivalries 
and jealousies. The bitterness to which this sectionalism 
would go was not fully appreciated until the problem of 
organizing the new territory was taken up during and after 
the close of the Mexican War. The sudden and complete 
comprehension of the import of the situation made the 
great leaders hesitate, and in a spirit of conciliation, re- 
sulting from this new understanding, the compromise of 
1850 was finally accepted, and all the recently acquired 
territory was organized. The Indian Country alone was 
without a government. It was now surrounded on all sides 
by organized states and territories and through it ran the 
routes connecting the east and the far west. 

Next must be traced the development of the four great 



53 Cutts, Constitutional and Party Questions, pp. 89-91. The Congressional 
Olobe does not record bills for Nebraska in 1846 or 1847. 



291] Matin: Indian Policy and Westward Expansion 1^-1 



factors which contributed to the revision of the Indian pol- 
icy through this later period as far as the passage of the 
Kansas-Nebraska Act. These factors are, first, westward 
expansion and the settlement of the Pacific Coast; second, 
the Pacific railroad movement; third, westward expansion 
and the organization of Nebraska; fourth, the changed liv- 
ing conditions and civilization of the Indians. In the dis- 
cussion of each the aim is to indicate how it brought in- 
fluence to bear on Indian policy which made revision ne- 
cessary. 

WESTWARD EXPANSION AND SETTLEMENT OF PACIFIC COAST 
The movement for the settlement of the Pacific Coast lays 
the background and becomes the motive in a large measure 
for the development of the other three factors indicated, 
A brief statement of the earliest phases of the settlement 
has already been made. The first steady stream of emi- 
gration to the coast began to flow in 1843. It is estimated 
that about 1000 emigrants made the long overland journey 
in that year. This stream increased slowly each year, in 
spite of the uncertainty of the question of the boundary, the 
joint occupation, and the absence of a government or pro- 
tection either in Oregon or en route. In 1846 the boundary 
question was satisfactorily settled with Great Britain. At 
that time the total population of the territory was reported 
at 10,000. In the spring of that year it is estim.ated that 
2,500 people were gathered along the Indian frontier on the 
Missouri River at Council Bluffs, St. Joseph, Elizabethtown, 
and Independence. Approximately two-thirds of them were 
bound for Oregon and the remainder for California. The 
road was long and difficult, and by the time they reached 
Ft. Laramie some were obliged to sell or abandon their 
v/agons and supplies and continue on horseback. Sickness 
of both emigrants and teams added to the hardship and dis- 
couragement of the journey.^* 

After 1848 the emigration to Oregon continued, although 
it did not have the incentive which attracted settlers to 
California. In that year the Territory of Oregon was or- 



McMaster, History of the People of the United States, Vol. VII, p. 432. 



42 University of Kansas Humanistic Studies [292 

ganized. The settlements came to center largely in two 
regions. The first had been made in the Willamette Valley, 
on the south side of the Columbia River. This still remained 
the center of population in the southern part of the Terri- 
tory. In the northern part of the Territory Puget Sound 
became the center of population and of economic develop- 
ment. The people of the north demanded a separate gov- 
ernment and prepared a memorial asking that a division of 
the Territory be made. A bill was passed in March, 1853, 
which created the new Territory of Washington out of the 
country north of the Columbia River and the forty-sixth 
parallel.^^ 

In 1848 the Pacific Coast became of most unexpected 
importance. Gold was discovered in California in January 
and before the year was out the news had spread to all parts 
of the east. Preparations were made during the winter of 
1848-49 for the rush to California. The question of first 
importance immediately became the matter of routes. Gen- 
erally speaking three possibilities presented themselves; 
the route by way of Cape Horn, the route across the Isthmus 
of Panama, and the route overland by v\^ay of the Platte 
River Valley and the South Pass. Of these the Cape Horn 
route was the safest. It was also the longest, but it was 
the one by which most of the commerce was carried on with 
the Pacific Coast. By the middle of March, 1849, over 
12,000 gold seekers had left New York for California by 
that route. The route across the Isthmus of Panama was 
more difficult and dangerous but it had the advantage of be- 
ing comparatively short. This route was literally swamped 
with emigrants. The overland route was the only one 
which had the advantage of lying within the territory of 
the United States. In the early spring of 1849, emigrants, 
wagons, and supplies collected along the Missouri River 
from Westport, Missouri, to Council Bluffs, Iowa. There 
they organized and waited for summer and sufficient grass 
to graze their animals during the journey. The streams 
from these divergent points united at or near Fort Kearny 



^ C. G. 2s. 32C. pp. 539-40, 554-.55. 



^93] Malin: Indian Poliqj and Westward Expansion 4S 

on the Platte River west of Grand Island. There a record 
was kept of the number of wagons that passed. By the end 
of June, when the emigration was practically over, there 
were 5,516 wagons recorded and it is estimated that 20,000 
persons accompanied them. Hundreds of wagons turned 
back. Probably 2,000 emigrants had died of cholera. This 
was only the beginning of the journey, and across the wil- 
derness many had to abandon part or all of their property. 
A traveler passing over the route writes that near Fort 
Laramie the prairie was strewn with provisions and wreck- 
age and burned wagons left by the emigrants. In one place 
about 800 pounds of bacon were heaped in one pile. ''Boxes, 
barrels, trunks, wagon wheels, whole wagon bodies, cook- 
ing utensils,'' and various implements were scattered along 
the trail, together with the carcasses of oxen. It was win- 
ter before the more belated emigrants reached their desti- 
nation and then only with the aid of those at the other end 
of the trail. This was the California and Oregon Trail, the 
overland route to the Pacific. 

Congress failed to provide a government for the Mexican 
Cession immediately after the close of the war. Polk sent 
General Riley to California with troops and orders from 
the War Department to take up the duties of civil govern- 
ment. With the encouragement of the President the Cali- 
fornians made a state constitution in September, 1849. It 
was adopted and the government organized. John C. Fre- 
mont and William M. Gwinn were elected senators. The 
state was admitted in the next year, as a part of the Com- 
promise of 1850. Similar movements developed in Deseret, 
or Utah, and in New Mexico, but Congress merely created 
territorial governments for them. 

The census of 1850 showed that California had a popula- 
tion of 122,000 and the emigrants poured into the country 
by the thousands during the year. Along the route they 
were required to register at Fort Laramie and the records 
show that 9,000 wagons carrying about 42,000 people had 
passed that point by the first of July, 1850.^« The emigration 



University of Kansas Humanistic Studies [29 

during 1851 and 1852 was near that of 1850, and the 
emigrants used every method of transportation for them- 
selves and their small store of goods from well equipped 
freight wagons and ox teams to wheelbarrows and push- 
carts. Representative Hall of Missouri made the statement 
in the House on 10 February, 1853, in the debate on the 
Richardson bill to organize Nebraska, that the annual emi- 
gration to the Pacific Coast was fifty to sixty thousand, and 
these pioneers had to make the long, weary journey through 
wild Indian country where there was no government to give 
them aid or protection except such as was afforded by the 
small military forces stationed at the few forts along the 
route." The territory from the Missouri River west to the 
Pacific Coast could never develop along natural lines and 
become a prosperous and contented part of a unified nation 
£0 long as it was cut off by the Indian Country and forced to 
work out its own destiny apart from the rest of the union. 
The integrity of nationality demanded that adequate com- 
— -^"^munications and means of transportation be provided, that 
the country along these routes be settled and developed, and 
that the Indians be removed from that territory.^^ 

WESTWARD EXPANSION AND PACIFIC RAILROAD MOVEMENT 

The story of the Pacific railroad movement is one that is 
closely interwoven with the organization of the Indian Coun- 
try and the consequent modification of the Indian policy. It 
must now be traced briefly in so far as it relates to these 
questions. Here also will be noticed the sectional rivalry be- 
tween the north and south. The idea of a Pacific railroad 
had occurred to several men in the beginning of the period 
of railroad building, but in 1845 Asa Whitney placed the 
proposition before Congress by memorializing that body for 

M. O. to Major John Dougherty 1 July, 1850. Dougherty MSS.; Missouri 
Historical Society Library, St. Louis. 
5^ C. G. 2s. 32C. pp. 558-60. 

58 The data for this section on the settlement of the Pacific Coast have been 
mostly taken from McMaster, History of the People of the United States. Volumes 
VII and VIII except where otherwise indicated. The interpretation is strictly the 
author's. 



295] Malin: Indian Policy andWeshcarcl Expansion 4-5 

a grant of land along the route to aid in the building of the 
road. His original plan was to build by the northern route 
from the Great Lakes west^vard. In the early forties this 
would have been the natural route, because it was the line 
along which westward expansion seemed to be moving. 
Similar proposals were presented in 1846 and each year 
thereafter until 1854. The later routes proposed were the 
central routes, either by way of South Pass or Santa Fe, or 
the southern route by way of Fort Smith and Santa Fe, or 
lastly the far southern route by way of El Paso. All of these 
except the last would pass through the Indian Country, and 
the land grants made to build them would be grants of the 
Indian Country. The land so granted was to be sold to set- 
tlers who would develop the country along the route so as to 
support the railroad. Almost all of the members of Congress 
were in favor of the railroad, but they could not agree as to 
the method to be adopted for building it, nor a5 to the 
terminals of the road. But one thing was clear to all ; that, 
whenever the road should be built, unless it went by the most 
southern route, the territorial organization of the country 
along the route would have to be completed. 

Officials of the government were also interested m the 
railroad and were looking forward to its being built. 
Buchanan, when Secretary of State, wrote a letter to J. M. 
Shively, Deputy Postmaster at Astoria in Oregon Territory, 
dated 29 March, 1847, in which he predicted the building of 
railroads and telegraphs to the Pacific. He said : 

"Science has discovered, and enterprise is now 
fast establishing, means of intercommunication so 
rapid, that, at no distant day, a journey from New^ 
York to Oregon vill be accomplished in less time 
than was once employed in traveling from that cit:y 
to New Orleans, and important news will be com- 
municated by telegraph with the velocity of light- 
ning. Their foreign commerce with the west coast 
of America, Asia, and the isles of the Pacific, 
will sail under the protection of our common flag 



Jyd University of Kansas Humanistic Studies [296 



and cannot fail to bear back wealth in abundance 
to our shores.""^ 

Two years later, the Secretary of the Interior, Thomas 
Ewing, in his annual report, commenting on the subject of 
the Pacific railroad, pointed out that the expansion of the 
eastern and the western lines of settlement would ultimately 
approach each other and thus fill up all the intervening ter- 
ritory. 

"It [California] has already a considerable com- 
merce, which is constantly increasing, and must 
soon become extensive, not only with our own coun- 
try and Europe, but with China, and the Pacific 
islands ; including Japan, whose ports, it is believed, 
will be opened to the admission of its gold. . . [The 
Oregon commerce was also growing.] Some means 
of intercommunication across the continent, 
through our own territory, from the Atlantic to the 
Pacific — a road which can be passed over with 
reasonable speed and safety — is necessary to meet 
the wants of our citizens on either coast, and is 
equally necessary to aid the government in con- 
trolling the Indian tribes of the intermediate coun- 
try, and in protecting from their depredations our 
two lines of frontier settlements, which will now 
gradually approach each other. Opinion as ex- 
pressed and elicited by two large and respectable 
conventions, recently assembled at St. Louis and 
Memphis, points to a railroad as that which will 
best meet and satisfy the wishes of our peopleJ'^^ 

He then recommended that surveys be made to determine the 
best route for a road, and, in fact, money had been set aside 
in the army appropriation bill of 1849 for such surveys, but 
• had not been used.^^ The next Secretary of the Interior, A. 
H. H. Stuart, made very similar comments in his report of 
the following year, but these recommendations also failed to 
bring results. 



59 Ex. Doc. No. 1. Is. 30C. p. 44. Pub. doc. 503. 

^° Sen. doc. No. 5. Is. 31C. pp. 13-14. Pub. doc. No. 570. The italics are the 
author's. 

Haney, Congressional History of Railways. Pt. II. p. 55. • 



297] Malin: Indian Policy andWestward Expansion ^7 



The rivalry between the north and the south over the 
question of routes for the Pacific railroad was intense. Their 
plans were more extensive than has been generally ap- 
preciated, and had a close relation to various proposals 
relating to Indian Affairs. On 30 September, 1850, Con- 
gress authorized the appointment of a special commission 
for the purpose of obtaining statistics and making treaties 
with various Indian tribes along the border of the United 
States and Mexico. The commission was composed of C. J. 
Todd, Robert B. Campbell, and Oliver Temple. Instructions 
were issued under the date of 15 October, 1850, and were 
written by Acting Commissioner A. S. Loughery. Behind 
the whole affair was a plan to secure territory, probably 
in west Texas, on which all the southern border tribes could 
be consolidated. This would remove all Indians from the 
southern boundary line, relieve the government of Indian 
border difficulties, open the country to settlement, and make 
possible the building of the Pacific railroad by the southern 
route. At the same time the government was engaged in 
surveying the boundary and the commission was to cooperate 
with the topographical engineers.^^ These plans do not all 
come out in the instructions but they are clearly set forth in 
the committee's report. They had conversations with Sena- 
tor Rusk of Texas, one of the strongest of the southern rail- 
road agitators, at New Orleans in November, and with 
Governor Bell at Austin, and sent reports of the conversa- 
tions to the department together with other communications 
not mentioned in the report. The following extract from the 
printed report (1851) gives a full statement of the under- 
lying motives of the expedition : 

"This system contemplates arrangements by 
which incursions into Mexico as well as Texas shall 
be restrained, and the separate territory proposed 
to he secured in Texas lies north of the route usually 
travelled to El Paso and New Mexico. A boundary 
having this beneficial provision on the entire route 



Instructions. Sen. doc. No. 1. 2s, 31C. p. 153. Pub. doc. No. 587. 



University of Kansas Humanistic Studies 



to the Pacific, will therefore offer inducements to a 
cordon of settlements along the borders of the 
United States and Mexico, which, tvith the military 
advantages of^ a railroad, will supercede the neces- 
sity of a considerable expenditure in the establish- 
ment of military posts. In this view of the subject 
we regard a railroad, so far as its establishment 
may be within the provisions of the Constitution, 
contiguous to the line now in process of demarca- 
tion, and extending to the Pacific, as possessing 
eminent tendencies to fulfill our treaty stipulations, 
one of the most important objects contemplated in 
our instructions. Without any design to disparage 
the other routes to the Pacific, we may be permitted 
to speak of the great advantages v/hich the climate 
and the topography on this route present to the con- 
struction of a railroad from sea to sea. The dis- 
tance along the route of the Gila, enormously es- 
timated at one thousand six hundred miles, is be- 
lieved to be, in the opinion of competent officers of 
the topographical bureau, not more than twelve 
hundred; and along this route the depressions in 
the Rocky Mountains are preeminently advantage- 
ous for the construction of a railroad, while all the 
approaches through Texas to El Paso on the Rio 
Grande present the most inviting considerations for 
this great object. 

"It is needless to expatiate upon the value of a 
railroad communicating across the continent within 
our own borders, whether we look at it in a com- 
mercial, political or military point of viev/. As a 
bond of union between the states on the Atlantic 
and Pacific, its importance cannot be exaggerated : 
and in event of a war with a maritime power, the 
facility which it would aflford for the rapid trans- 
portation and sudden concentration of an armed 
force, will render our possessions on the Pacific as 
impregnable as the late war with Great Britain 
proved our invincibility along the Atlantic, Missis- 
sippi and lake coasts."^^ 

In connection with the Richardson bill to organize the 
Territory of Nebraska, three years later, the rivalry over 



^3 Sen. doc. No. 1. Is. 31C. pp. 302-306. Pub. doc. No. 61. The italics are the 
author's. 



299] 



Malin : Indian Policy and Westward Expansion 



49 



these same routes is again clearly manifested, with its bear- 
ing on the Indian situation. In the debate of 10 February 
in the House Committee of the Whole, Mr. Howard of Texas 
led the opposition based on the argument that the Indian title 
to the land in Nebraska had not been extinguished. As the 
government had made special treaty guarantees to the 
Indians that this land v/ould be theirs forever and that there 
would never be any organized white territory or state es- 
tablished over them, the Richardson bill would be a breach 
of faith which could not be tolerated. In order to allow the 
Indians sufficient land the southern boundary of the 
Nebraska territory should be made 39° 30' instead of 36° 30', 
north latitude. Mr. Hall of Missouri, who was one of the chief 
supporters of the bill, answered him. He ridiculed Howard's 
change of attitude toward the Indian and his sudden 
solicitude for his welfare, because it was always understood 
that "according to Texa-s morals and politics" the Indian 
had no rights whatever. He then made it plain that he con- 
sidered that Howard's interests were not in the welfare of 
the Indians of Nebraska, but in an altogether different sub- 
ject. His purpose and that of the state of Texas was to 
force the Indians out of that state in order that it might be 
settled and to drive them northward into Nebraska and pre- 
vent its organization and settlement. These additional wild 
Indians in Nebraska would make the central routes to the 
Pacific so dangerous that emigration to the coast would of 
necessity have to go by way of the southern route through 
Texas, and when the Pacific railroad should be built, it 
would also have to follow that route.'"* 

The climax of the efforts of the southern group of rail- 
road men to open their route came in 1853. The southern 
boundary of the Mexican cession as fixed by the treaty of 
peace in 1848 was designed to include the passes through the 
Rocky Mountains for a Pacific railroad well within the ter- 
ritory of the United States. The surveys of the boundary 
later showed that the best passes were on the Mexican side 



^ C. G. 2s. 32C. pp. 542-44. 556-58. 



50 



University of Kansas Humanistic Studies 



[300 



of the line, and by a second treaty with Mexico the Gadsden 
Purchase was made which secured the desired railroad route. 

During this time two particular groups of men in Missouri 
had set about to build railroads as far as the Indian Coun- 
try. The Hannibal-St. Joseph Railroad Company was in- 
corporated by the act of 16 February, 1847. The company 
immediately made efforts to secure a land grant from the 
United States Government to aid in building the road. The 
memorial was drawn up by J. S. Green and W. P. Hall. It 
was stated that the road was to be "an outlet to our rich and 
valuable trade to Santa Fe and other Mexican towns, which 
trade [was] becoming daily more and more important, and 
would ofier many facilities to those v/ho were desirous of 
migrating to Oregon or the more distant provinces on the 
Pacific."*^' Senator Atchison of Missouri presented a bill 
for the land grants on 5 May, 1848, which was favorably 
reported from the Committee on Public Lands by Senator 
Breese of Illinois, but was not acted upon further.^^ On 3 
January, 1850, Atchison introduced another bill for a land 
grant to the same road, which was passed by the Senate on 
19 June, but was not considered by the House.^^ In the next 
session Shields, the chairman of the Senate Committee on 
Public Lands, introduced a bill for the same purpose. It was 
also passed by the Senate on 8 February, 1851, but again the 
House did not consider it.*^* In the House the same series 
of bills had been presented by W. P. Hall, Representative 
from Missouri, and in addition he had presented two memo- 
rials in 1850 in favor of building a Pacific railroad from St. 
Joseph, Missouri, his home city.^^ 

In the meantime, the Hannibal-St. Joseph Railroad was 
working for state aid in Missouri, which was granted by the 



Laws of Missoiiri. 1847. pp. S53-54. Quoted in Million. State Aid to 
Railroads in Missouri, p. 71. 

^ Sen. Jour. Is. 30C. pp. 318. 397. A week later Douglas introduced a bill for 
a land grant for the state of Iowa for a railroad from the Mississippi to the Mis- 
souri River. Sen. Jour.. Is. 30C. p. 333. 

67 Sen. Jour. Is. 31C. t>t>. 51. 206. 410. A bill providing for a grant of land to 
the Davenport-Council Bluffs road in Iowa was presented by Felch 6 March. 
Ibid. p. 97. 

68 Sen. Jour. Is. 31C. pp. 35. 38. 151, 157. 

69 House Jour. Is. 31C. pp. 755. 880. Pub. doc. No. 566. It is also very impor- 
tant to note here that a year later Hall presented his first bill providing for the oj- 
ganization of Nebraska Territory. It is significant that he should be presenting 
these three subjects to the attention of Congress at the same time. 



301] Malin: Indian PgUcij andWesticcird Expansion 51 

legislature on 22 February, 1851. When Congress met the 
next \^inter, another attempt was made to secure a land 
grant from the national government, which proved success- 
ful. Senator Atchison again introduced the measure, but it 
was amended in order to include another project upon which 
he had also been working. 

The Pacific Railroad Company was incorporated by the 
state of Missouri 12 March, 1849, and was to follow the 
route from St. J[gise£h^)through Jefferson City to the west 
line of the state at some point in Cass County. The inten- 
tion of the men behind this proposition was to build the road 
"with a view that the same may thereafter be continued 
westwardly to the Pacific Ocean."'^' This company also de- 
sired a grant of land from Congress, and drew up a memorial 
which was presented by Senator Atchison 27 February, 
1850.'^ In the next session he presented a bill for the same 
purpose which was passed by the Senate but not by the 
House.'- In the Vvinter of 1851-52 the bill was introduced by 
Senator Geyer of Missouri but was not considered. How- 
ever, the Hannibal-St. Joseph bill, before mentioned, was 
passed with an amended title which included both roads. 
This act was approved 10 June, 1852.'^ A special session of 
the state legislature was called to accept the grant and dis- 
tribute the land to the companies, but the distribution was 
delayed until the follo^^'ing regular session. The Pacific Com- 
pany was authorized on 25 December, 1852, to build a south- 
west branch, which was finallj' run to Springfield, Mis- 
souri."^ Soon afterward an act was passed which granted 
the company the right "to construct and operate its road to 
any point or points ivest of the boundary of the state of 
Missouri."''^ 

Both of these ventures were represented in Congress by 
two men, Atchison in the Senate and Hall in the House, w^ho 
were leaders in the movement to organize a territorial gov- 



'° The charter is printed in Sen. Misc. doc. Xo. 59. Is. 31C. pp. 3-7. Pub. doc. Xo. 
563. 



52 



University of Kansas Humanistic Studies [302 



ernment in the Indian Country. Senator Atchison was also 
chairman of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs for 
some time and managed the business of the Indian Depart- 
ment in the Senate, especially the Laramie Treaty which 
opened up the central route to the Pacific through the west- 
ern Indian Country. The two roads just considered have 
been chosen as illustrations, because of the men supporting 
them and because they were roads which were not only pro- 
jected, but had received both state and national aid and were 
actually in process of construction. Furthermore it was 
clearly planned for both of them to be built to the Pacific 
through the Indian Country.^^ 

WESTWARD EXPANSION AND ORGANIZATION OF NEBRASKA 

1848-52 

After 1848 emigration across the Indian Country increased 
by leaps and bounds. The road to California was traversed 
by thousands of Americans going to seek homes or gold in 
the territories of the Pacific Coast. They were therefore es- 
pecially interested in a safe route to the Pacific through 
organized territory. At the same time the pioneers had been 
banking up against the eastern frontier of the Indian Coun- 
try and many were looking forward with a great deal of 
interest to the day when the Indians would be forced out of 
that country and the whole region opened up to settlement. 
On 20 December, 1849, a memorial from the Legislature of 
the State of Missouri asked for the organization of the coun- 
try west of that state. 

The interest of Stephen A. Douglas in the organization of 
the Nebraska country in the preceding period has been dis- 
cussed in connection with the organization of the Oregon 
country. In 1848, Douglas came forward with another bill 
providing for the organization of Nebraska. As proposed 
in this bill, the territory was to include the country between 



"^^ The project of the Douglas group are probablj' of more imi^ortance in the his- 
tory of the Pacific railroad, but that story has been told in Hcdder's Genesis of the 
Kansas-Nebraska Bill. In the proceedings of the State Historical Society of Wis- 
consin. 1912. The connection between the schemes of Douglas and the Mis- 
souri group will be discussed in the next section, on the organization of Nebraska. 

77 C. G. Is. 30C. p. 56. 

78 Ibid. p. 467. 



303] Malin: Indian Policy and Westivard Expansion 



53 



40' and 43' north latitude, from the Missouri River west to 
the Rocky Mountains.'^ The bill, however, failed to receive 
consideration at this time. The proposal was premature so 
far as immediate accomplishment was concerned, but the 
movement in favor of early organization was steadily grow- 
ing. 

A very keen analysis of the situation as it existed at the 
time was made by Father De Smet, the noted missionary to 
the Indians of the west. The following is taken from a letter 
written in 1851 : 

''The same lot that the Indians east of the 
Mississippi have experienced, will at no distant day 
overtake those who dwell on the west of the same 
river. As the white population advances and pene- 
trates into the interior, the aborigines will gradu- 
ally withdraw. Already, even, it is perceptible 
that the Avhites look with a covetous eye on the fer- 
tile lands of the Delawares,*- Potawatomies, Shaw- 
nees.^" and others on our frontiers, and project the 
organization of a new Territory — Nebraska. I 
should not be surprised if, in a few years, negotia- 
tions were entered upon for the purchase of those 
lands, and the removal of those Indians who will be 
forced to retire farther west. The great openings 
offered to emigration by the definitive arrangement 
of the Oregon (^it^stion, as well as the acquisition of 
New Mexico, California and Utah, have alone, thus 
far, hindered any efforts for extinguishing the 
Indian titles or rights to the lands situated immedi- 
ately west of the State of Missouri, and those situ- 
ated on the south side of the river Missouri, be- 
tween the rivers Kansas and Platte, and probably 
as high as the Nebraska or L'Eau qui court."^- 

Father De Smet's comments are very significant. He had 
read the situation aright, only the movement, which he pre- 
dicted, came sooner than he had anticipated. The government 
seems to have gone so far as to consider the survey of the 
Indian Country in 1851 with a view to the organization of 



•5 Watkins. History of Xebraska. Vol. I. p. 135. 
so Territory on the north side of the Kansas River. 
51 Land immediately south of the Kansas River. 

a De Smet, L/f> and Lexers. Edited bv Chittenden and Richardson. Vol. III. 
pp. 1201-03. 



University of Kansas Humanistic Studies [304. 



the territory, for J. Butterfield, Commissioner of the General 
Land Office, reported to the Secretary of the Interior, A. H. 
H. Stuart, that : 

"the establishment of a territorial government for 
the Platte river or Nebraska country, west of the 
Missouri river, and between the state of Iowa and 
the eastern spurs of the Rocky Mountains, would 
have to precede the extension of our surveying 
system over any bodies of country that may be ac- 
quired from the Indians in that region."^^ 

The next step in the movement to organize the Indian 
Country was the introduction of a bill in the House for that 
purpose by Representative Hall of Missouri in 1851.^* This 
was followed in the next year by one in which he named the 
proposed territory, the "Territory of the Platte.®^ However, 
neither of these bills received consideration. Nevertheless 
the issue of the organization of Nebraska was joined during 
this session of 1852-53 on the bill presented by Representa- 
tive Richardson of Illinois, Chairman of the House Commit- 
tee on Territories. At that time there seems to have been 
more than one element in the legislative program of the 
northwestern group in the House. Three measures were as- 
sociated in their minds which should be worked out in con- 
junction with each other. They were the division of Oregon 
into two territories under the names of Oregon and Colum- 
bia, the organization of Nebraska, and the building of a 
road from the frontiers to the coast. This is the program 
outlined by Shields of Illinois on 8 February, 1853, when the 
two bills for organization of territories came up for con- 
sideration in the Committee of the Whole. Richardson made 
a motion to take up the Nebraska bill first, as it was the de- 
sire of the Committee on Territories to take them up in that 
order, but when objection was made he gave way. The Ter- 
ritory of Columbia bill was then considered, amended to 



b3 Sen. doc. No. 1. Is. 32C. p. 17. Pub. doc. No. 613. 
&i C. G. Is. 32C. pt. 1. p. 80. 
C. G. 2s. 32C. p. 47. 



S05] Malin: Indian Policy and Westward Expansion 55 



change the name to Washington, and passed on 10 Febru- 
ary.«« 

Richardson's Nebraska bill was considered in Commit- 
tee of the Whole on the same day as the Territory of Colum- 
bia bill. The proposed boundaries of the Territory were 36° 
30' on the south, and 43° on the north, and included all the 
country between the Missouri and the Rocky Mountains. The 
debate on the bill was almost altogether along three lines; 
the absence of white population, the question of Indian title, 
and the building of a Pacific railroad. The last two questions 
are very closely connected in many respects and it is dif- 
ficult to draw the line between the arguments based on a 
sincere interest in the Indian and those arising out of the 
selfish interests and the rivalry over the Pacific railroad 
routes. 

All the territory included within the boundaries fixed by 
the Richardson bill was occupied by Indians and the inter- 
course act of 1834 prohibited white men access to the coun- 
try. It was therefore impossible for white men to settle 
there. However, the intercourse act did not give the Indians 
a perpetual guarantee to all the territory defined as Indian 
Country for the purpose of the administration of the act. In 
this Indian Country there were three different kinds of 
lands. First, those to which the original Indian title had 
been extinguished and which had been regranted by treaty 
in perpetuity to Indians removed from east of the Mississippi 
River under the provisions of the Act of 1830. Furthermore, 
these Indians were never to be included within any organized 
state or territory without their own consent. They con- 
stituted a comparatively narrow strip along the western 
border of Missouri. Second, those to which the original 
Indian title had been extinguished, but which had never been 
regranted to any other Indians. The title, therefore, be» 
longed to the United States Government, although Indians 
occupied or hunted over all of what is now central and west- 
ern Kansas and Nebraska south of the Platte River. Lastly, 
lands for which the original Indian title had never been ex- 



86 C. G. 2S. 32C. pp. 539-40, 554-55. Passed Senate 2 March. 



I 

■)■ 

{ 




MA? TWO. 



Status of Indian Title in Trans-Mississippi Valley Before 1854 

Land held by Indians by perpetual treaty 
guarantee. SOUTHERN COLONY. 

Land held by g-overnment free from Indian title. 

Land held by Indians by orig-inal title and without 
any perpetual g-uarantees. NORTHERN COLONY. 

Land affected by Fort Laramie and Fort Atkinson 
treaties by which the Indians granted right of 
way for roads and military and other posts. 



NoDtl76 MISSISSIPPI VAI_L£Y 



307] Malin: Indian Policy and Westward Expansion 57 



tinguished, and no treaty guarantee had been made to the 
Indians to whom the title belonged. These included lands 
north of the Platte River, also a small district south of the 
Platte and just west of the Missouri River, and the lands of 
the prairie and mountain tribes of the far west; Colorado, 
Wyoming, etc.^^ 

The objections to the Richardson bill based on the Indian 
question centered on three points ; the perpetual treaty guar- 
antee of title, the guarantee that they would not be included 
in any organized state or territory, and the argument that if 
Nebraska were organized with the boundaries as fixed in 
the bill, the Indians would not be left enough land to sup- 
port them.^^ Howard of Texas insisted that the south bound- 
ary should not be 36° 30' but 39° 30'. This would leave the 
Indians sufficient room, but he did not explain that it would 
also leave the central routes to the Pacific in the Indian 
Country just as before. Hall of Missouri led the defense. 
He ridiculed Howard's sudden interest in the welfare of the 
Indians. He was not aware that the gelitleman from Texas 
had changed his policy toward them, and his constituents 
were to be congratulated on the change in their representa- 
tive. It had always been understood that "according to 
Texas polftics and morals, the Indians had no rights what- 
ever." He then pointed out that the bill provided that the 
treaties witir the Indians should not be violated and that 
they should not be included in the new territory without 
their own consent. Provisions were also made for negotia- 
tions with the Indian tribes for the extinguishment of their 
title in a regular way. He then showed that Mr. Howard 
was not interested in the Indians in Nebraska at all. It was 
the purpose of Mr. Howard and the state of Texas to force 
the Indians out of Texas so that their territory could be 
settled and developed. The Indians thus driven out would be 
forced northward into the Nebraska country and in that way 
prevent the organization and settlement of Nebraska. The 
presence of so large a body of wild Indians in that country 



87 See above, pp. 20 and 24. 

88 See above, p. 49. 



58 



University of Kansas Humanistic Studies [308 



would make the overland routes to the Pacific so dangerous 
that emigration would of necessity have to avoid the Indian 
Country and pass through Texas and furthermore when the 
railroad should be built, it would have to take the southern 
route.«^ 

Mr. Hall seems to have been the only speaker who under- 
stood, in its larger aspect, what the opening of the Nebraska 
country would mean in its relation to the Indian policy of 
the government. The organization of Nebraska and the re- 
moval of the Indians would be a complete revolution in the 
Indian policy followed for twenty years. The consolidation 
of the Indians in the southwest would have to be abandoned 
and a complete regrouping would have to take place. 

Before the time at which the Richardson bill was being 
considered in Congress the two propositions, the organiza- 
tion of Nebraska and the construction of the Pacific rail- 
road by the central route, had been definitely and openly 
linked together. Probably the first time they were so 
publicly linked as measures for practical and immediate ac- 
complishment was in a speech made by Thomas H. Benton 
at Jackson, Missouri, on 30 October, 1852.^^ However, the 
connection had been well understood for some time by the 
groups of men interested in these and other railroads and in 
the organization of the Nebraska Territory. The close con- 
nection is also brought out very forcibly by the Atchison- 
Benton campaign for the senatorship in Missouri during the 
summer of 1853 and the following winter. Both of the prin- 
cipals in the contest recognized that the organization of the 
Nebraska Territory was necessary before the railroad could 
be built by the central route to the Pacific.^^ In fact the two 
measures were counterparts of each other. 

When it comes to the analysis of the debate on the Rich- 
ardson bill it is clear that the really fundamental objection 
was the rivalry over the routes for the Pacific railroad. It 
is clear that the bill was sponsored by the Douglas group in 



S9 C. G. 2s. 32C. pp. 542-44. 556-58. 

90 R?i.y, Repeal of the Missouri Compromise, p. 75. 

a Ibid. 



309] Malin: Indian Policy and Westward Expansion 59 

Congress, a group which was definitely pledged to the rail- 
road idea.'^^ Richardson of Illinois was chairman of the 
Committee on Territories in the House, and Douglas himself 
was Chairman of the Committee on Territories in the Senate. 
They were in coalition with the members from Missouri, 
Hall in the House and Atchison in the Senate, who were also 
pledged to the railroad idea. The importance of this coalition 
has not been sufficiently appreciated. Atchison had se- 
cured the land grants to two Missouri railroad companies 
whose purpose was to build to the Pacific and he was now 
supporting the Nebraska bill. Hall had presented the same 
series of land grant bills in the House, memorials for the 
building of a Pacific railroad from St. Joseph, Missouri, and 
two bills for the organization of Nebraska.^^ Now he was 
taking the leading part in the defense of the Richardson bill 
in the House. His speech in the Committee of the Whole on 
10 February, 1853, in which he developed his reasons for the 
organization of Nebraska, is sufficiently comprehensive and 
important to warrant quotation even at the risk of a measure 
of tedidusness : 

"The gentleman from Texas [Mr. Howard] en- 
tirely misapprehends the reasons upon which the 
organization of Nebraska rests. He states, that 
Nebraska Territory comprises three hundred and 
forty thousand square miles of land, and that only 
some four or five hundred people reside in the Ter- 
ritory; and he says that the wants of the people 
do not require a territorial organization. We do 
not want this hill merely to protect the inhabitants 
of Nebraska; we want it for other equally impor- 
tant purposes. 

wish the gentleman from Texas would turn 
to the map of the United States, and look at the 
situation of Nebraska. 

wish the gentleman would also look at the 
situation of Oregon, California and Utah. An im- 
mense wilderness of one thousand miles in extent 
separates the people of this side of the continent 



32 Hodder. Genesis o f the Kansas-Nebraska Bill. Proceedings of the Wisconsin 
Historical Society. 1912. 
93 See above, pp. 50-51. 



University of Kansas Humanistic Studies 

from those occupying the territory bordering on 
the Pacific Ocean. How are Oregon and Califor- 
nia to be protected in time of war if this great 
wilderness is forever to remain without settle- 
ment? It appears to me to be a self-evident truth 
— one about which there cannot be two opinions 
— that if California and Oregon are to remain 
portions of this Union, you must extend your lines 
of settlement from the Missouri river to the sum- 
mits of the Rocky Mountains, and continue the 
farms, the village, and city of the white man from 
ocean to ocean. Hov/ is your commerce carried 
on with California and Oregon? It is carried on 
by way of Cape Horn, or across the Isthmus of 
Panama. And how do your emigrants reach those 
settlements? They have to pass through the im- 
mense wilderness west of the State of Missouri, 
exposed to all kinds of disease, the inclemency of 
the weather, and the attacks of savage Indians. 
There is no house on this great line of travel in 
which a sick man can take refuge, or a helpless 
woman seek shelter from the storm; and yet the 
gentleman says, because we have a treaty with a 
few Indian tribes v/hich stipulates that their ter- 
ritory shall not be included within any territorial 
government, that neither now nor thereafter can 
we protect that extensive overland route. 

"We want to organize the Territory of Nebraska 
then not merely for the protection of a few people 
who reside there, hut also for the protection of 
Oregon and California in time of war, and the 
protection of our commerce, and the fifty or sixty 
thousand emigrants who annually cross the plains. 
These emigrants have now no protection, and 
murder and crimes of various kinds, are commit- 
ted among them which are not and can not be pun- 
ished under existing laws. Establish a territorial 
government and judicial tribunals there, and pro- 
tection will be afforded them. 

s|. sfc ^ ^ 

"The crowd of emigrants, to which I have ad- 
verted, every year violates to a greater or less ex- 
tent the rights of the Indians. They destroy their 
timber, and spread the cholera, small-pox, and 
measles, and other contagious diseases among 
them. They subject them to innumerable annoy- 



311] Malin: Indian Policy andWestward Expansion 61 



ances ; and you cannot protect these Indians from 
encroachments on their rights unless you do what I 
have no doubt the State of Texas would wish were 
done; establish a decree that no man shall pass 
through that Territory at all, either in going to or 
returning from California and Oregon, or remove 
these Indians off the great highways to the Pacific 
coast and settle them as far as possible from the 
emigrants who now pass through their country 
in crowds. Establish the Territory of Nebraska, 
place its government under the direction of men 
of character, supported by the laws of the coun- 
try, and, if necessary, by military force. Do that, 
and in some degree you may expect to secure these 
Indians from disturbance."^* 

He then quotes from the reports of Commissioner of Indian 
Affairs Medill and Superintendent Mitchell in which they 
advocate the removal of the Indians of the Platte Valley and 
the opening of the country along the routes to Oregon and 
California. Continuing he says : 

''I will never go for a bill to violate a treaty with , 
any Indians, or anybody else. But, says the gen- 
tleman, this will change our entire Indian policy. 
Yes, sir, it will. Does the gentleman know that 
since the Act of 1834 was passed, the condition of 
the country has been totally changed? In 1834, 
Oregon was not settled, and I suppose a majority 
of the people of the United States thought it would 
never be settled. Since that time we have acquired 
a great and powerful State on the coast of the 
Pacific, and we have acquired New Mexico, 
too, but under the Indian intercourse act, 
that immense country which intervenes be- 
tween Missouri and the summit of the Rocky 
mountains is made a wilderness, and we are cut | 
off from the great coast of the Pacific. / appeal I 
to the gentlemen of this committee if that change^ 
of the circumstances of the country does not im- 
peratively demand a change in the Indian policy 
of the country? Why, everybody is talking about 
a Railroad to the Pacific ocean. In the, name of~^ 
God, how is the railroad to be made if you will 
never let people live on the lands through which ^ 



94 The italics are the author's. 



62 University of Kansas Humanistic Studies [312 



the road passes? Are you going to construct a 
road through the Indian Territory, at the expense 
of $200,000,000, and say no one shall live upon 
the land through ivhich it passes ? 

''But this territory is too extensive, says the 
gentleman from Texas. I admit that it is exten- 
sive. It extends from the forty-third parallel of 
north latitude to the parallel of 36° 30' north lati- 
tude, and from the Missouri river to the summit 
of the Rocky Mountains. It has to be thus ex- 
tended, in order to embrace the great line of travel 
to Oregon, New Mexico and California. The 
South Pass is in latitude Jf2° 30', and hence the 
territory has to extend to the forty-third degree of 
north latitude. 

''The reason why this bill fixes 36° 30' as the 
southern boundary of Nebraska is, because the 
road from Missouri to New Mexico crosses the 
line of 36° 30', and therefore you have to run down 
to that line to protect that great travel. That is 
the reason ivhy the boundaries are so extensive. 

'*As to the Indian intercourse act and that pol- 
! icy I regret that it ever was established. It ap- 
pears to me that those who at that day represented 
the State which I now represent, did not go quite 
as far into futurity as they might have done, and 
as the interests of the people of my section of the 
country required. I regret that it is the case, but 
having been established, I wish to do nothing that 
will interfere with any treaties that may have 
been made whilst that policy prevailed. In my 
opinion, however, this bill is sufficiently guarded 
to protect the rights of the Indian tribes. If it is 
not so, then I beg the gentleman to devise amend- 
ments calculated to protect the Indians, and I will 
vote for them; but do not raise the objections to 
the bill and then make no effort to relieve it from 
the weight of those objections. 

Later in the debate Richardson spoke in suppof t of the bill 
and the burden of his defense was to make possible the na- 
tural westward expansion and the opening of the routes to 
the Pacific : 



95 C. G. 2s. 32C. pp. 558-60. The italics are the author's. 



813] Malin: Indian Policy and Westward Expansion 63 



''Gentlemen have stated that the population of ! 
this territory amounts to only six or eight hundred 
people. Probably it does not amount to more than 
that. The settlement of that territory has been 
prevented for six or seven years by the Indian in- 
tercourse act and the policy pursued by this gov- 
ernment. But there are today, upon the borders 
of Missouri five, ten or fifteen thousand people 
tuaiting for you to give them permission to settle 
in the Territory, and to relieve the Government 
from the expense of the military force that you ; 
keep there. Five thousand settlers would do more" 
to protect the line of travel to Oregon, California 
and New Mexico, and all the interests you have in 
the Proposed Territory, than all the troops in your 
regular Army. 

* * * * 

''He [Hovv^ard] is opposed to all bills v/hich 
create territorial governments. He is willing to 
treat tvith these Indians, to go through that slow 
process, and in the meantime all the great objects 
of the establishment of a territorial government 
tvill be lost, and emigration to the Pacific will be 
driven to another portion of the Union, from the 
route which it now follows. He wants time, but the 
great interests of our western people demand the 
passage of this bill, and demand it noiv. . . ."^^ 

Two amendments were adopted to obviate all possible ob- 
jections based on the Indian question. The first presented 
by Clingman (N.C.) provided specifically that certain 
Indian tribes be not included in the Territory without their 
own consent. The second transferred the duties of superin- 1 
tendent of Indian Affairs in the Territory from the Superin- i 
tendent at St. Louis to the Governor of the proposed Terri- 
tory. In this form the bill passed the House on 10 February, 
1853, by a vote of 98 to 43. An analysis of the vote shows it 
to be almost altogether sectional. Thirty of the forty-three 
votes against the bill coming from the south, and ^^hty of 
the ninety-eight for the bill coming from the northffy 

In the Senate the contest was more critical as the opposi- 



95 C. G. 2s. 32C. pp. 651-63. The italics are the author's. 
97 IMd. 



\ 



University of Kansas Humanistic Studies 



tion was stronger owing to the more equal representation of 
north and south in the upper house. The objections made 
were very similar and here the Douglas-Missouri coalition 
becomes even more significant. Atchison of Missouri was 
Chairman of the Committee on Indian Affairs and was chosen 
President pro tern 20 December, 1852, and presided during 
the session. For the reason that he was presiding officer 
he kept almost silent on all matters under discussion, 
speaking on only two bills ; first an Indian appropriation bill 
on which, as Chairman of the Committee on Indian Affairs, 
he had special information and interest ; the other the Rich- 
ardson bill. On 3 March, 1853, he spoke with considerable 
reservation. 

'Terhaps," he said, ''there is no state so much 
interested in the organization of Nebraska Terri- 
tory as Missouri. If not the largest, I will say, 
the best portion of that territory, perhaps the only 
portion of it that in half a century will become a 
state, lies immediately west of the State of Mis- 
souri. It is only a question of time whether we 
will organize the territory at this session of Con- 
gress, or whether we will do it at the next session ; 
and for my part I acknowledge now, as the Sena- 
tor from Illinois [Douglas] well knows, when I 
came to this city at the beginning of the last ses- 
sion, I was perhaps as much opposed to the propo- 
sition as the Senator from Texas [Rusk] now is. 
The Senator from Iowa [Jones or Dodge] knotvs 
it; and it was for reasons tvhich I ivill not mention 
or suggest. But, sir, I have upon reflection and 
investigation in my own mind and from the opin- 
ion of others — my constituents whose opinions I 
am hound to respect, — come to the conclusion that 
now is the time for the organization of this Terri- 
tory. It is the most propitious time."^^ 

It was the last day of the session ; the last hope that the 
bill would pass. It needed the support of every friend. The 
opposition to consideration of the bill continued and Atchison 



98 C. G. 2s. 32C. p. 1111. The italics are the author's. A meeting at Park- 
ville, Missouri, in the spring of 1852 declared in favor of the organization of the 
Territory of Nebraska. Atchison presented the proceedings of the meeting and 
they were referred to the Committee on Territories. Local sentiment in the west, 
independent of political considerations, demanded the organization of Nebraska. 



si 5] Malin: Indian Policy and Westward Expansion 65 



spoke again, this time with less reserve. Before, he had re- 
fused to give his reasons for his earlier opposition ; now he 
gave them : 

"One was, that the Indian title had not been ex- 
tinguished, or at least only a small portion of it 
had been. Another was the Missouri Compromise, 
or, as it is commonly called, the slavery restric- 
tion. . . . Whether that law was in accordance with 
the Constitution of the United States or not, it 
would do its work, and that work would be to pre- 
clude slaveholders from going into that territory. 
But when I came to look into the question, I found 
that there was no prospect, no hope of a repeal of 
the Missouri Compromise, excluding slavery from 
that territory. Now, sir, I am free to admit at 
this moment, at this hour and for all time to come, 
I should oppose the organization and settlement of 
that territory unless my constituents and the con- 
stituents of the whole South, of the slave states of 
the Union, could go into it on the same footing, 
with equal rights and privileges, carrying their 
species of property with them as other people of 
the Union. Yes, sir, I acknowledge that that would 
have governed me, but I have no hope that the re- 
striction will ever be repealed. . . . 

'*So far as that great question is concerned, we 
ought as well agree to the admission of this Terri- 
tory now as next year or five or ten years 
hence."^^ 

His speech explained why he had objected to the organiza- 
tion earlier, but it did not explain fully what influence had 
brought about this change in opinion. There was a purpose 
behind this bill important enough to outweigh his objections 
based on the slavery restriction of the Missouri Compromise. 
He admitted that the Senator from Illinois and the Senator 
from Iowa knew well his reasons for earlier opposition and 
implied that they also knew his reasons for a change of 
opinion. 

Senator Bell of Tennessee, who was an important member 
of the opposition, asked Douglas to explain his meaning in 
urging the bill : 



C. G. 2s. 32C. p. 1113. 




66 



University of Kansas Humanistic Studies 



[316 



"I know the Senator from Illinois sufficiently 
well to know that when he makes a proposition of 
this description, it has a meaning; and he does 
not merely mean to fill up space, and pass the time 
until the present session of Congress has passed 
away. What he does is pregnant with signifi- 
cance; and if the honorable Senator from Illinois 
is disposed to tell his meaning, I am perfectly will- 
ing to hear him."^^" 

Douglas took up the challenge. He stated plainly : 

''I have tried to get it through for eight long 
years, .... It is an act that is very dear to my 
heart, one that I should be glad to discuss in all 
its bearings. It is one of immense magnitude and 
grave importance to the country. 

''The object of the bill is to create a territorial 
government extending from the western boundary 
of Missouri and Iowa to Utah and Oregon. In 
other words, it is to form a line of territorial gov- 
ernments extending from the Mississippi valley to 
the Pacific Ocean, so that we can have continuous 
settlements from one to the other. We can not ex- 
pect or hope even, to maintain our Pacific posses- 
sions unless they can be connected in feeling and 
interest and communication with the Atlantic 
states. This can only be done by continuous lines 
of settlements, and those settlements can only be 
formed v/here the laws will furnish protection to 
those who settle upon and cultivate the soil. The 
proposed Tei^ritory of Nebraska embraces quite a 
number of the emigrant routes extending to our 
Pacific possessions. It embraces the route from 
Missouri to Santa Fe: and also to Utah, Oregon 
and California. . . . Sir, what have we done for 
these Pacific possessions? What have ive done to 
bind them to us? When a proposition was brought 
forward here to establish a railroad connection, 
it met with determined resistance. The project 
was crushed and destroy ed."^^^ 

Douglas's first bill for the organization of Nebraska had 
been introduced in December, 1844, and at the same time 
Atchison had introduced a bill for the organization of Oregon 



C. G. 2s. 32C. p. 1115. 

Ibid. p. 1116. The italics are the aiithor's. 



S17] Malin: Indian Policy and Westward Expansion 67 

which had included Nebraska. Atchison's interest in 
Nebraska therefore had been of as long standing as that of 
Douglas.^^^ At that time the slavery question had not been 
so large a factor in territorial organization. Atchison's at- 
titude at that time was more national than sectional as it had 
come to be later. 

Douglas and Atchison had both been working since 1848 
to secure grants of land from Congress to build railroads 
from the Mississippi River to the Indian Country. Douglas's 
efforts had been directed to the building of a road which 
would connect Chicago with the Missouri River at some point 
in Iowa. Atchison had secured grants of land in 1852 to 
build two roads, one from Hannibal to St. Joseph, Missouri, 
and the other from St. Louis to the west line of the state.^"^ 
It was the purpose to extend each of these roads eventually 
to the Pacific, therefore both Douglas and Atchison were 
vitally interested in the organization of Nebraska, and in 
order for Douglas to carry his measure he had won Atchison 
over to the support of his bill, even though Atchison had had 
to sacrifice the slavery interests of Missouri to do so. 

Atchison gives further evidence of the purpose of this bill 
in a series of speeches beginning at Weston, Missouri, 6 
June, 1853, just three months after the above discussion in 
Congress, in answer to Benton's charges that he was opposed 
both to the organization of Nebraska and the construction of 
the Pacific railroad. In his defense he cited the land grants 
which he had secured for railroads during the preceding ses- 
sion: 

'The land obtained by these measures will assist 
in the construction of two roads from the Missis- 
sippi, both pointing to the Pacific, either of them 
long links in the chain yet to be constructed. Who 
will not admit that the land grants thus obtained 
will facilitate, expedite and certainly insure, the 
speedy completion of the Hannibal~St. Joseph rail- 
road, the Pacific railroad from St. Louis to Kan- 
sas, as well as the southwestern branch of the same, 
terminating in a section of the state rich in re- 

See above, p. 38. 
See above, pp. 50-51. 



68 University of Kansas Humanistic Studies [318 



sources hitherto undeveloped. Missouri will oc- 
cupy the enviable position of being able to offer 
the United States three frontier starting points 
for the Pacific railroad, which offer cannot be made 
by any other state in the Union. ... In obtaining 
these grants of land, the first link toward connect- 
ing by railroad the valley of the Mississippi with 
the Pacific, was heated, formed and welded, and 
if ever the connection is made (and I doubt not 
it will be) and either of the points upon our 
western border be made the starting point, it will 
be because this link has been made. ... I am in 
favor of the construction of such a railroad by the 
General Government for that purpose. I will vote 
to appropriate land and money. / believe it abso- 
lutehj necessary for the integrity of the Union. As 
to where it shall commence or where it shall end, 
that is a matter to be determined when the surveys 
and operations in progress shall be completed, and 
the route it must take between the termini is ab- 
solutely dependent upon these surveys. . . . My 
opinion is that the matter of termini and the route 
of the road will of necessitv be left to the discre- 
tion of the President.'^^o* 

During the summer of 1853 Atchison's attitude toward the 
slavery question, as related to the organization of the 
Nebraska Territory, underwent a radical change. On re- 
turning to Missouri after the close of the session in which 
the Richardson bill had been under discussion, he was drawn 
into a political contest with Benton. His term was drawing 
to a close and Benton was determined to secure his seat. The 
Legislature elected in the fall of 1854 would select his suc- 
cessor. Benton began his campaign in May, 1853, making the 
Central Pacific railroad and the organization of the Nebraska 
Territory the key notes of the campaign, charging Atchison 
with opposition to both of these measures. Atchison made 
his first speech in answer at Weston, Missouri, 6 June, 1853. 
In this speech he avowed his support of both measures and 
cited his record in Congress, but he said a bill for the or- 
ganization of Nebraska must not contain "any restrictions 



1^ Quoted in Raj-, Repeal of the Missouri Compromise, pp. 78-80. "^if, The italics 
are the author's. 



319] Malin: Indian Policy and Westward Expansion 69 



upon the subject of slavery. ... I will vote for a bill that 
leaves the slaveholder and the non-slaveholder upon terms 
of equality. I am willing that the people who may settle 
there and who have the deepest interests in this question 
should decide it for themselves."^^^ To carry this policy into 
effect would be to repeal the Missouri Compromise. This was 
a complete change of attitude and it must be recognized in 
whatever influence Atchison may have had in shaping the 
Kansas-Nebraska Act of the succeeding session. 

The fact that the Indian title in Nebraska had not been 
extinguished proved a stumbling block in the way of the pas- 
sage of the Richardson bill to organize the Territory. The 
bill had been defeated, but another had been passed which 
authorized the President to negotiate with the Indian tribes 
west of Missouri and Iowa for the purpose of extinguishing 
the Indian title to all or part of that country.^*'^ If this could 
be done immediately that important element in the opposition 
to the bill would be removed. So great a task was not to be 
easily accomplished and when the question of Nebraska was 
opened in the next session the work was still incomplete. 

The people on the border were very much excited about 
the proposed organization of the Indian Country and some 
went over into the territory to explore and make locations. 
Of course the opposition made the most of it. Reports came 
out through the press "that a constant current of emigration 
is flowing into the Indian Country." This campaign of op- 
position assumed such proportions that Manypenny, the 
Commissioner of Indian Affairs, took occasion to comment 
upon it in his annual report of 1853. He said: 

"Some have explored the country, but all, as far 
as my information extends, have returned to await 
the action of the executive department in making 
treaties, and the necessary legislation for the or- 
ganization of the territory. ... On the 11th of Oc- 
tober, the day on which I left the frontier, there 
was no settlement made in any part of Ne- 
braska."i«^ 



Quoted in Bay, Repeal of the Missouri Compromise, p. 135. 

Rpt. Com. Inf. Aff. Sen. doc. No. 1, Is. 33C. pt. I, p, 249. Pub.doc. No. 690. 

Sen. doc. No. 1, Is. 33C. pt. I, p. 275. Pujb. doc. No. 690. 



70 



University of Kansas Humanistic Studies [S20 



The sentiment of the western country clearly demanded 
the organization of the territory, and with the meeting of 
Congress the final struggle began. On 14 December, 1853, 
Dodge of Iowa introduced his Nebraska bill and the Kansas- 
Nebraska bill, which Douglas reported on 23 January, 1854, 
as a substitute, was finally passed and approved by the 
President on 30 May. The bill as passed provided for the or- 
ganization of the Indian Country north of the thirty-seventh 
parallel into two territories. Kansas and Nebraska. The Mis- 
souri Compromise was repealed and the question of slavery 
was left to be determined by the people who settled the ter- 
ritory.] These provisions regarding slavery met the demands 
which Atchison made during the summer of 1853 as the 
only conditions upon which he would support the organiza- 
tion of the Indian Country. Douglas alone was not able to 
carry the Kansas-Nebraska measure which would open the 
way for his Pacific railroad. Therefore, it was necessary 
for him to preserve the coalition with Missouri, for Atchison 
could command enough western and southern influence to 
accomplish his purpose. He was obliged to make this con- 
cession and in addition he gave Atchison his active support 
in the latter's campaign against Benton in Missouri, as is 
shown by the letter of F. P. Blair Jr., to the Missouri 
Democrat 1 March, 1856. "Mr. Douglas especially has taken 
the trouble on several occasions within the last two years to 
visit the state of Missouri to give aid and comfort to the 
'Nullifiers and Rottens'. . . who have been warring on Old 
Bulhon here since the advent of Tyler."^°^ 

The fact that Atchison had an important influence in 
shaping the Kansas-Nebraska Act is beyond question, al- 
though there are conflicting stories regarding details. Sena- 
tor Butler of South Carohna in his defense of Atchison in the 
Senate on 28 February, 1856, said that ''General Atchison. . . 
had perhaps more to do with the bill than any other sena- 
^Qj. "109 jjg ^ position to know whereof he spoke be- 



108 Quoted in Ray. Rerenl of the Missouri Ccmproinise. p, 202. Note. 

109 Appendix C. G. Is. 34C. p. 103. 



321] Malin: Indian Policy and Westward Expansion 



71 



cause he and Atchison together with Hunter of Virginia had 
lived at the same place during the session of 1853-54.^^^ 

There is no doubt that the chief interests behind the Kan- 
sas-Nebraska Act were those concerned in the building of the 
Pacific railroad. ^^^^ Atchison recognized these interests and 
commented upon them in a letter written from Washington 
5 June, 1854, to the Missouri Repiiblican, a week after the 
passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act : 

"T/ze Douglas Bill tvas a western measure. It 
teas designed to add to the poiver and tuealth of 
the West. Well might St. Louis declare Benton as 
hostile to her best interests ; for no portion of the 
country is to be so largely benefitted by the open- 
ing of Kansas and Nebraska to settlement. All of 
the railroad interests are largely interested, for a 
termimis on the loestern frontier, blocked by an 
Indian tvall, is very different from an indefinite 
extension ivest through neiv, rapidly opening set- 
tlements. 

CHANGED LIVING CONDITIONS AND CIVILIZATION OF INDIANS 

The last factor to be considered in bringing about the re- 
vision of the Indian policy is the changed living conditions 
and civilization of the Indian himself. When located east of 
the Mississippi, the Indian had been more or less injured by 
contact with the white population, his game had been dis- 
troyed, he had had to be consolidated into smaller and smaller 
districts and finally had to turn to agriculture and a civilized 
mode of living or to migrate to the west. Now in his west- 
ern home much the same process was going on, only there 
was now no great unoccupied region to which he could go. 
The Indians on the border had reached a fair degree of 
civilization, especially the half-breeds of the tribes. These 
more advanced Indians were looking forward to the time 
when they could become citizens, own land in severalty, and 
live the life of the white man. However, the majority of 
them were not ready for such measures. 



Congressional Directory. 1853-54. 

For further discussion on tlus subject see Hodder, Genesis ofthe Kansas- 
N'^bras'ca Bill. Proceedings ofthe State Historical Society of Wisconsin. 1912 . 

Quoted in Eay, Repeal of the Missouri Compromise, p. 261. The italics are 
the author's. 



\ 



12 



U niversity of Kansas Humanistic Studies [322 



The Wyandot Indians were one of the most advanced 
tribes on the border and they, particularly, were anxious to 
become citizens, and were looking forward to changes in 
policy in their relation to their country. William Walker, a 
member of their Nation and governor under the so-called 
Provisional Government of Kansas, wrote in his diary on 25 
May, 1850: 

"This may be the last semi-annuity we will re- 
ceive from the United States, for, if the President 
and the Senate should confirm our treaty it will 
certainly be the last. As after that event we Wy- 
andots will become citizens of Uncle Sam's States, 
a truly new era in the history of the Wyandot Na- 
tion."^!^ 

The treaty was not approved but the Wyandots persisted 
in pressing their measure. The subject was again brought 
to the attention of Congress in 1852 when the Wyandots 
asked to become citizens of the new territory which they ex- 
pected would be immediately organized. Thomas Moseley, 
the Indian Agent for the Kansas Agency, explained the 
situation among the Wyandots in a letter to Indian Superin- 
tendent D. D. Mitchell, dated 1 September, 1852 : 

"I am of the opinion that the entire tribe, with 
very few, if any, exceptions, are anxious to be- 
come citizens of the United States government, in 
the new territory expected to be organized, north 
of the Kanzas river and west of Missouri. 

"I find quite a difference with this tribe, in the 
last three years, in the management of their little 
government affairs by laws of their own creation. 
Many of the principal men have died, reducing 
their numbers so as to make it difficult to carry on 
a system of government ; and hence their great de- 
sire to change their present condition. They see 
plainly that they cannot expect to see the present 
state of things to continue much longer ; and from 
the many reports in circulation, they confidently 
believe that the Nebraska Territory may, at the 
present session of Congress, be organized, and they 



Covernor Walker's Diary. Proceedings and Collections of the Nebraska Plistor- 
cal Society. 2 Series. Vol. Ill, p. 309. 



S^S] Malin: Indian Policy and Westward Expansion 73 



wish to become, by permission of the United States, 
citizens of that Territory."^^* 

The condition of the other tribes near the border was not 
so far advanced, but they were in need of a change of policy. 
Their game had been largely killed and destroyed and the 
government had for years been granting them annuities and 
had made provisions for aiding in teaching them something 
of the civilized mode of living. But these arrangements had 
not been satisfactory either to the Indians or to the govern- 
ment. Commissioner Medill in 1848 reviewed the conditions 
and pointed out the necessity of a more effective method of 
handling and regulating trade and intercourse with tKe 
Indians. His proposed policy for correcting these defects 
will be considered later. 

Three years later Superintendent D. D. Mitchell made the 
following report concerning the border tribes : 

**So far as the border tribes are concerned, I 
am happy to be able to state, (from personal ob- 
servation) that they are gradually advancing in 
civilization, and a large majority of them are now 
as intelligent, comfortable and well informed as 
their white neighbors. They have become very 
much intermixed and amalgamated with the 
whites ; and this process of civilization (if it may 
be so termed) will continue under the existing state 
of Indian affairs. I have thought and observed 
much on this subject, and have no hesitation in 
saying, that an intermixture with the Anglo-Saxon 
race is the only means by which the Indians of 
this continent can be partially civilized."^^^ 

After outlining his proposals regarding the organization 
of Nebraska Territory and the assigning of land to the 
Indians he continued : 

"The Indians do not and never can cultivate one 
acre in a thousand of the productive lands watered 
by the tributaries of the Missouri, Kansas, Platte, 
and Arkansas. Moreover, these lands are now of 
no use to the present owners, the game having been 



Sen. doc. No. 1. 2s. 32C. pp. 364-65. Pub. doc. No. 658. 
Sen. doc. No. 1, Is. 32C. pp. 322-26. Pub. doc. No. 613. 



74 University of Kansas Humanistic Studies [S2Jh 

long since killed off. I have talked this subject 
over with the Indians on several occasions, and 
have always found the more intelligent portions 
of the tribes not only willing but anxious to change 
their condition in such manner as I have recom- 
mended."^^^ 

The tribes further west were far less civilized, but their 
condition was graduallj'' becoming more serious. The 
emigrants who had been crossing the plains had been steadily 
killing off their game. It was not so easy for them to turn 
to agriculture for a portion of their support, as the border 
tribes had done. As early as 1849 John Barrow, the Indian 
Sub-Agent at Council Bluffs, had called the attention of the 
department to the situation among the Pawnees: 

"Unless the lands of these people are soon pur- 
chased by our government, and they removed to 
a country where game is more abundant, and w^hich 
does not lie in the midst of their enemies, this 
once powerful tribe, in a few years, must become 
extinct."^^' 

Two years later Superintendent Mitchell also described the 
condition of the more western tribes in his annual report for 

the year 1851 : 

**The condition of the prairie and mountain 
tribes presents but a gloomy prospect for the fu- 
ture. I had an opportunity during the present 
year of seeing and talking with a majority of the 
wild nations, and was much surprised to witness 
the sad change which a few years and unlooked 
for circumstances had produced. The buffalo, upon 
which they rely for food, clothing, shelter and traf- 
fic, are rapidly diminishing. In addition to their 
other misfortunes, the hoardes of emigrants pass- 
ing through the country seem to have scattered 
' death and disease in all directions. The tribes have 
suffered much from small-pox and cholera, and 
perhaps still more from venereal diseases. . The 
introduction of all these evils they charge, and I 
suppose justly, to the whites. While their melan- 



"8 Ibid. 

Sen. doc. No. 5, Is. 32C. p. 1078. Pub. doc. No. 570. 



S25] Matin: Indian Policy and Westward Expansion 75 

choly condition is greatly to be deplored, it is ex- 
ceedingly difficult to prescribe a remedy.""^ 

These extracts from the reports of the Indian Department 
are sufficiently clear to show that the Department considered 
that decided modifications of policy were essential to insure 
the well-being of the Indian, as well as to allow for west- 
ward migration, the road to the Pacific, and the organization 
of the Nebraska Territory. 

118 Sen. doc. No. 1, Is. 32C. pp, 324-26. Pub. doc. No. 613. 



PART THREE 



The New Indian Policy 



The period between 1840 and 1848 has been indicated as 
one of transition in Indian policy. The beginnings of the 
new forces which were to modify it have been described and 
then the evolution and growth of the four most important 
factors in the period after 1848 has been traced to illustrate 
how they were reacting on each other and were bringing 
definite and ever increasing influence to bear in demanding 
a complete modification of the recognized Indian policy in 
the Trans-Mississippi Valley. This policy of consolidation of 
the Indians in the southwest between the Red and Platte 
rivers west of Missouri blocked the free emigration of white 
population to the Pacific Coast, the Pacific railroad by the 
central route, the normal extension of the frontier westward 
toward the Rocky Mountains, and did not solve the problems 
of protection and civilization of the Indians. During the 
period through which these forces were developing, they were 
exerting a continuous pressure to which the officials of the 
Indian Department responded; first, with uncertainty and 
with seeming reservations, later, clearly and completely. 

GROUPING OF BORDER TRIBES I NORTH AND SOUTH 
The first statement in which the new policy is forecasted 
was made in the very beginning of the transition period. The 
plan is formulated in the annual report of Indian Commis- 
sioner T. Hartley Crawford to the Secretary of War, J. C. 
Spencer, in 1841. It did not originate with him, but no pre- 
vious pubHc statement of the plan has been found. It 
seems to have been one that had been contemplated for some 
time, although it is quite clear from the operations of the 
Indian Department that up to this time the older policy of 



78 



U niversity of Kansas Humanistic Studies 



consolidation had been followed consistently. He states the 
plan very clearly: 

''Your immediate predecessor/^" at an early per- 
iod in his administration of the War Department, 
contemplated the establishment of an Indian Ter- 
ritory in the northern part of Iowa. Governor 
Doty, of Wiskonsan, was appointed commissioner 
to negotiate with the Sioux, or Dakota tribes, for 
a cession of land for this purpose west of Fort 
Snelling, embracing the St. Peter's river, in the 
neighborhood of the Blue Earth river and Swan 
Lakes. It was not intended, however, to confine 
him to any particular spot or definite limits, but 
to indicate that there or thereabouts seemed to be 
the proper selection. . . . The project seems to me 
to be judicious, in reference as well to our citizens 
as to the Indians. It will be difficult to find space 
southwest of the Missouri for all of the tribes /et 
to be removed, and perhaps impossible withoul/the 
acquisitions referred to a twelve month ago. The 
Southwestern states complain of the congregation 
of so many Indians on their borders. If there be 
any danger in their concentration, it will not be i]>-^ 
creased on the plan proposed, and we shall thus 
make a counterpoise to the Southwestern Indian 
Territory, having a dense white population (that 
will soon he collected) interposed between the two 
settlements. It is an important point of national 
policy, that judiciously carried out, would, I think, 
result in great benefits to the country."^^*^ 

In addition he reported that Governor Doty had made two 
treaties in accordance with this plan, but they had not been 
ratified. Also commissioners had been appointed to 
negotiate with the Fox and Winnebagoes, and still other 
negotiations had been attempted with the Sac and Fox but 
had not been successf ul.^^^ The most important point is that 
in this report of Commissioner Crawford are outlined the 
essential features of the New Indian Policy, viz., the forming 

119 His immediate predecessor was John Bell, who had been in olSce only about 
six months, so it is quite certain that the earlier Secretary Poinsett is referred to 
here. The report was written about the time the change was made in the War 
Department, and probably before, therefore the seeming discrepancy can be ex- 
plained. 

130 Ex. doc. No. 2. 2s. 27C. p. 243. Pub. doc. No. 401. The St. Peter's River is 
now called the Minnesota River. The italics are the author's. 
121 Ibid. p. 250. 



829] Malin: Indian Policy and Westward Exjpansion 79 

of two great groups or colonies of Indians, one in the north, 
and one in the south, with *'a white poulation interposed be- 
tween the two settlements," in the valley of the Platte, mak- 
ing a continuous line of white settlements to the coast and 
opening that important transcontinental route through de- 
veloped and organized country. 

The growing importance of the Oregon Country attracted 
attention to this problem in another way. If Oregon was to 
be saved to the United States it was necessary to encourage 
and protect settlers who might be induced to go there. 
Atchison's Oregon bill of 1844, Douglas's Nebraska bill of 
the same year, and his Oregon bill of 1845 were designed to 
meet this demand. Any one of these bills, had it been en- 
acted into law, would have immediately revolutionized the 
old Indian policy. 

In the same year in which the first Atchison and Douglas 
bills were presented to Congress, Secretary of War Wilkins 
discussed the question of the Indians ni the Platte Valley in 
his annual report. At that time he recommended that the 
territory on both sides of the Platte River be organized and 
opened to settlement. The Indians who then occupied the 
region should be moved northward and southward, forming 
two Indian groups or colonies. By such a plan the organized 
country between the groups would include and protect the 
two great routes to Santa Fe and Oregon.^- 

The principle involved in these proposals does not seem to 
have been generally accepted or recognized during the period 
from 1840 to 1848 in making relocations of tribes. Except 
for the treaties mentioned in the report of 1841, it is not 
referred to as a guide in treaty making in any reports of the 
Indian Department. However, upon examination of the 
treaties of removal made during the period the fact comes 
out that, whether intentionally or not, they were in accord- 
ance with this principle, as were other relocations recom- 

1" H. Ex. doc. No. 2. 2s. 28C. p. 124. Pub. doc. No. 463. 



80 



University of Kansas Humanistic Studies 



[330 



mended by the department which were not carried out. 
These treaties are classified in the table below to indicate the 
tribes shifted northward and southward.^^s 

A. Tribes moved northward. 

1842 Chippewas from Wisconsin and Michigan to Minn. 

(Consolidated on lands of tribe). 

1846 Winnebagoes from Iowa and Minnesota to Minn. 

1847 Chippewas from Wisconsin to Minnesota. 
(Consolidated). 

1848 Menomini from Wisconsin to Minnesota. 

B. Tribes moved southward. 

1842 Wyandott from Ohio and Michigan to Kansas. 
1842 Sac and Fox from Iowa to Kansas. 
1846 Kansas from Kansas to Kansas. 

(Consolidated to make room for removal of other tribes). 

One of the recommended treaties is worthy of special 
notice because of the principle which is advocated in regard 
to the purchase of lands from the Indians. The land of the 
Peorias was located near the border and a few miles south of 
the Kansas River. These Indians were related to the Weas 
and Miamis. The Indian Superintendent at St. Louis made 
the following proposal : 

"The Peorias have decreased within the last 
few years. . . . They are anxious to sell. ... I would 
suggest that their land be purchased. ... I am 
aware that the government has no immediate use 
for the land, but / would urge it, as a good policy 
on the part of the government, to extinguish the 
Indian title to the lands that they have no need of, 
whenever it can be done on advantageous terms, 
and with benefit to the Indians."^^^ 

Superintendent Harvey had two purposes in making this 
recommendation. First, the consolidation of these small, 
weak, tribal groups would make for the more efficient ad- 
ministration and for the well-being of the Indians. Second, 
the purchase of all lands on the frontier as fast as possible. 



Data taken from Royce, Indian Land Cessions. In Eighteenth Annual re- 
port of the Bureau of Ethnology, Part II. Polk's Diary shows that the removal of 
the Winnebagoes to Minnesota was in accordance with his recommendations. Vol. 
II. pp. 169, 187. 

Report of Supt. T. H. Harvey. 1846. Sen. doc. No. 1, 2s. 29C. pp. 282-88. 
Pub. doc. No. 493. The italics are the author's. 



i 



3S1] Malin: Indian Policy and Westward Expansion 81 



It was along this section of the frontier that the white 
population was exerting its greatest pressure toward break- 
ing through the Indian wall into the valleys of the Kansas 
and Platte rivers beyond. 

The developments which have just been outlined become 
much more significant when they are considered in connec- 
tion with the report of Indian Commissioner Medill for 1848. 
These tendencies here are crystallized, taking definite shape 
in the new Indian policy. This statement of policy is pre- 
faced by a discussion of the moral and material condition 
of the Indians in the west and the obligation which rested 
on the government to provide for their welfare. The Indians 
had never been able to make a sudden transition from 
savagery to civilization and when they came into direct con- 
tact with white men it was always to their detriment. Meas- 
ures should be taken to prevent this, and as a means to this 
end he advocated the consolidation of the Indians into com- 
pact groups. Under this kind of an arrangement the admin- 
istration could be made more efficient and measures taken 
for their civilization could be made more effective. Then he 
comes to the heart of the question : 

"If this great end is to be accomplished, how- 
ever, material changes will soon have to he made 
in the position of some of the smaller tribes on the 
frontier, so as to leave an ample outlet for our 
white population to spread and to pass towards 
and beyond the Rocky Mountains : else, not only 
will they be run over and extinguished, but, all may 
be materially injured. 

*'It may be said that we have commenced the 
establishment of two colonies for the Indians that 
have been compelled to remove; one north, on the 
headwaters of the Mississippi, and the other south, 
on the western borders of Missouri and Arkansas, 
the southern limit of which is the Red River. . . . 
The southern boundary of this [northern] colony 
will be the Watabe River, which is the southern 
limit for the country of the Winnebagoes. . . . 

"If the Kansas River were made the northern 
boundary of the southern colony there would be 
ample space of unoccupied territory below it for 



University of Kansas Humanistic Studies 

all Indians above it that should be included in the 
colony. But the Delawares, Potawatomies, and 
possibly the Kickapoos, who, or nearly all of whom, 
are just above that river, it would not be necessary 
to disturb. Above these and on or adjacent to the 
frontiers, are the band of Sac and Foxes, known 
as the *Sac and Foxes of Missouri,' the lowas, the 
Ottoes and Missouris, the Omahas, the Poncas, and 
the Pawnees. The last named tribe is back some 
distance from the frontier, on the Platte river, di- 
rectly on the route to Oregon, and has been the 
most troublesome to the emigrants in that terri- 
tory. By the treaty of 1833 theij ceded all their 
lands south of that river, and obliged themselves 
to remove north of it; but as they are constantly 
liable to attacks from the Sioux in that direction, 
those south have never been removed. As, how- 
ever, there will soon be a military force in that 
region, which can afford them protection from the 
Sioux, theij may properly be compelled at an early 
day to remove to and keep within their own coun- 
try; and thus be out of the way of emigrants. . . . 
The other tribes mentioned can gradually be re- 
moved down to the southern colony, as the conven- 
ience of our emigrants and the pressure of our 
tvhite population may require; which may be the 
case at no distant day, as the greater portion of 
the lands they occupy are eligibly located at and 
near the Missouri river, and from that circum- 
stance, and their superior quality, said to be very 
desirable. Indeed it would be a measure of great 
humanity to purchase out and remove the Omahas 
and the Ottoe and Missouris at an early period, 
particularly the former. . . as they are circum- 
scribed in their hunting expeditions by the Sioux 
and Pawnees, they are liable at times to destitu- 
tion and great suffering. . . . [Their] country is 
estimated to co-ntain from five to six million acres 
of valuable land, which could be obtained at the 
time at a very moderate price. . . . Reasons of a 
similar kind exist for buying out and removinp: at 
an early period, the Ottoes and Missouris. . . .The 
lands claimed by them are estimated to embrace 
two or three million acres. These two measures 
consummated, the Pawnees removed north of the 
Platte, and the Sioux of the Missouri restrained 
from country south of that river, there ivoidd be 



333] Malin: Indian Policy and Westward Expansion 83 



a wide and safe passage for our Oregon emigrants; 
and for such of those to California as may prefer 
to take that route, which I am informed will prob- 
ably be the case with many. 

"Eventually when the Sioux have left the Mis- 
sissippi region, and the Pawnees have been dis- 
placed in one or other of the ways mentioned, and 
when the other intervening tribes between the 
northern and southern colony, shall have been re- 
moved within the latter, an ample outlet of about 
six geographical degrees will be opened for our 
population that may incline to pass or expand in 
that direction; and thus prevent our colonized 
tribes from being injuriously pressed upon, if not 
swept away; while to the south of the southern 
colony there will also be a sufficient outlet for such 
portion of our population as may take thaidirec- 



The above report illustrates the two points to be Accom- 
plished by this new^ policy. The Indians were to beyemoved 
from the Platte and Kansas valleys in order ^i^ipen fully 
the central route to the Pacific, and in order to provide a 
great area of fertile country for the extension of the frontier. 
Commissioner Medill recognized the work that had already 
been done toward the fulfillment of this program. Still, only 
a beginning had been made, and the recommendations which 
were included in this report would further its achievement. 
He also recognized that he would have to deal with sectional 
jealousies, and therefore called special attention to the fact 
that to the south of this southern Indian colony there would 
be ample opportunity for the expansion of white settlements 
to the westward. It must be remembered that this was just 
at the close of the Mexican War when the question of the 
organization of the new southwest made the problem of 
slavery and its extension into the territories particularly 
bitter. And it was further complicated by the rivalry over 
the routes for the Pacific railroad. In this way the northern 
and central states could be satisfied by the central outlet and 
the south by the southern outlet to the Pacific and the re- 

Report of Com. of Ind. Aflf. 1848. Ex. doc. No. 1, 2s. 30C. pp. 388-90. Fub. 
doc. No. 537. The italics are the author's. 



tion. 




54 University of Kansas Humanistic Studies [33^ 

cently acquired territory. In this report the Indian Depart- 
ment has formulated its new policy, and this marks the be- 
ginning of the definite movement on their part to fulfill it. 
Their efforts were continued until the day of the final ac- 
complishment of their aim in the extinguishment of the In- 
dian titles in the central part of the Indian Country and its 
organization into Kansas and Nebraska territories. 

In 1848 the Department of the Interior was created and 
the Indian Department, which had been a division of the 
War Department, was now transferred to it. The year 1849 
was the first under the new arrangement. The presidential 
election brought in a new political party and a change in the 
heads of departments. But in spite of all these changes 
there was no modification in the new policy in regard to the 
Indian Country. Orlando Brown, the new Commissioner of 
Indian Affairs, advocated in his annual report of 1849 the pro- 
gram of grouping the Indians, adopted enthusiastically the 
course outlined by his predecessor and repeated the recom- 
mendations for the relocation of the border tribes : 

"A prominent feature in this course of policy 
should be to carry out an excellent suggestion in 
the annual report of my predecessor of last year, 
that the smallest tribes scattered along the fron- 
tier, above the Delawares and Kickapoos — embrac- 
ing the Sacs and Foxes of Missouri, the lowas, the 
Omahas, the Ottoes and Missouris, the Poncas, and 
if possible the Pawnees — should be removed down 
among the tribes of our southern colony, where 
suitable situations may be found for them, in con- 
nection with other Indians of kindred stock. Such 
an arrangement, in connection with the change 
which must inevitably take place in the position 
of the Sioux, would, as remarked by my predeces- 
sor, open up a wide sweep of country between our 
northern and southern colonies for the expansion 
and egress of our white population westward, and 
thus save our colonized Indians from being injur- 
iously pressed upon, if not eventually overrun and 
exterminated, before they are sufficiently advanced 
in civilization, and in the attainment of resources 
and advantages, to be able to maintain themselves 



335] Malin: Indian Policy and Westward Expansion 85 



in close proximity with, or in the midst of, a white 
population."^26 

In another part of the report Commissioner Brown made 
a definite application of the new principle of grouping. The 
Stockbridge Indians were being relocated and a place had 
to be selected for their new home. The central region was 
considered, but was rejected, for: 

"To locate at any point between the Winneba- 
goes and Menominies, on the upper Mississippi or 
its vicinity, and the Kickapoos and Delawares, in 
the neighborhood of the Kansas river, south of the 
Missouri, would be inconsistent with the policy 
of keeping a wide space between the northern and 
southern Indian colonies as an outlet for our white 
population/'^^'^ 

A location which was satisfactory to the Indians, was 
not found for some time. They were first assigned to lands 
in Minnesota, but later definitely located in Wisconsin.^^* 

The recommendations of some of the subordinates in the 
Indian Department were even more urgent than those of the 
Indian Commissioner himself. D. D. Mitchell of the St. Louis ^ 
Superintendency insisted that the policy must be carried -out 
quickly. Thus he said: 

"I would next call your attention to the neces- 

sity of some speedy action in reference to the half / 

breed lands near the mouth of the Kansas river, \ 

and between the two Nemehas.^^^ Many of the 1 

claimants are desirous to sell, while but few evince I 

any disposition to settle on the lands. It would, / 

in my opinion, be the best policy for the govern- / 

ment to purchase these tracts as early as possible ; A 

for, considering the vast tide of emigration that A 

is now settling westward, the time is not distant 1 

when it will require twenty fold the amount to ex- / 

tinguish the title of the claimants, than it would / 

at present."^^° / 

It is evident that Mitchell recognized the force which the 



i26f Rpt. Indian Comm. 1849. Sen. Ex. doc. No. 1, Is. 31C p. 946. Serial No. 570. 

Ibid. p. 947. The italics are the author's. 
128 See Royce, Indian Land Cessions, pp. 780-81. 
JiS^ In the southeast comer of Nebraska. 
F| Sen. doc. No. 5, Is. 31C. p. 1068. Pub. doc. No. 570. 



86 



University of Kansas Humanistic Studies [836 



pressure of the westward movement of population was exert- 
ing on the Indian wall along the frontier. He realized that it 
was only a matter of time until that wall would be broken 
and white settlements would spread over the whole region. 

In the same year, John E. Barrow, the Indian Sub-Agent 
at Council Bluffs, adds his recommendation for the removal 
of the Pawnees: 

''Unless the lands of this people are soon pur- 
chased by the government, and they removed to a 
country where game is more abundant, and which 
does not lie in the midst of their enemies, this once 
powerful tribe, in a very few years, must become 
an extinct race."^^^ 

These Indians lived in the central Platte Valley, and most 
of the emigrant travel to the coast had been through the 
country which they occupied. The slaughter of game had al- 
ready gone on to such an extent that they were not able to 
support themselves, and continued slaughter of their game 
and their contact with the emigrants made their future im- 
possible under the conditions which must exist there. 

Although another change took place in the office of In- 
dian Commisioner in 1850, there was again no change in the 
general policy. Mr. Luke Lea, the new Commissioner, again 
adopted the new policy of grouping the Indians into two 
colonies and advocated it in his annual report. His language 
is almost identical with that which Commissioner Medill 
had used two years earlier, and it is evident that he was 
using Medill's statement as his model.^^^ went fur- 

ther by emphasizing more definitely the necessity of a cen- 
tral as well as a southern outlet to the western possessions 
of the United States : 

"Below the most southern of our colonized tribes 
we have an ample outlet to the southwest, but 
another of higher latitude is required, leading 
more directly to our remote western posses- 
sions."^^^ 

Then he indicated the removals which he considered most 



Ibid, p. 1078. 

Sen. doc. No. 1. 2s. 31C. p. 39. Pub. doc. No. 587. 
Ibid. The italics are the author's. 



SS7] Malin: Indian Policy and Westward Expansion 87 



necessary and desirable as the first steps in the fulfillment 
of the policy : 

beginning will be made in carrying this meas- 
ure of policy and humanity into effect by the pur- 
chase, as contemplated, from the Sioux, of a large 
portion of their country ; — and it may be fully con- 
summated by the removal of a few tribes between 
the Sioux territory and the Kansas river, with 
whom we have no treaty stipulations guaranteeing 
in perpetuity their possessions. Suitable locations 
may be found for them south of that river, where 
secure in comfortable and permanent homes, they 
would be stimulated by the salutary influence and 
example of neighboring and more enlightened 
tribes."^^* 

Again in the next year he repeated his statement of policy. 
Also he announced : 

''The recent purchase from the Sioux of a large 
portion of their country supplies this outlet in part, 
and will enable the government by the removal of 
a few tribes between the Sioux territory and the 
Kansas river, to throw open a wide extent of coun- 
try for the spread of our population west- 
ward. . . 

In the same report he brings the Nebraska movement into 
direct relation to the question of the removals which he had 
just recommended : 

''The necessity for an appropriation to carry 
these measures speedily into effect is the more ap- 
parent and imperious, in view of the already im- 
posing demonstrations of the public feeling in 
favor of the early organization of a territorial 
government o^er the territorj^ on which these In- 
dians reside.'l^ 

What had been referred to in a general way in the earlier 
reports as the pressure of white population or the extension 
of the western frontier had now become a definite movement 



Ibid. 

135 Sen. doc. No. 1. Is. 32C.p. 268. Pub. doc. No. 613. The italics are the author's. 
The Sioux territory referred to lay in Iowa, Minnesota and the eastern edge of the 
Dakotas. 

136 Ibid. 



88 



University of Kansas Humanistic Studies 



[338 



for the organization of this part of the Indian Country which* 
had now come to be called Nebraska. The organization of 
Nebraska as a separate movement has already been traced, 
but now here as early as 1851 explicit evidence is afforded of 
the influence which its development had on the evolution of 
Indian policy. 

Other members of the Indian Department were not with- 
out interest in the situation and the tendencies developing in 
the middle west relative to the same movement. They were 
western men and it is possible that in a large measure they 
may have been responsible for the attitude of the Indian De- 
partment as a whole. Mr. D. D. Mitchell, Superintendent of 
Indian Affairs at St. Louis, presented his plans in his report 
of 1851. Of course he approaches the question from the 
standpoint of the well-being of the Indian, but whatever the 
point of view, the result would be the same for the Indian 
Country. Thus he explains his plans : 

"I have thought and observed much on this sub- 
' ject, and have no hesitation in saying, that an in- 
termixture with the Anglo-Saxon race is the only 
means by which the Indians of this continent can 

be partially civilized. In order to carry out this 

plan, I beg leave to suggest, for the consideration 
of the department, the following measures, viz.; 
the laying off of Nebraska Territory, with the fol- 
lowing boundaries : Commencing on the Missouri, 
at the mouth of the Kansas river, and running up 
the Missouri to the mouth of the L'au qui court, 
or Running Water river; following up the Run- 
ning Water river to its source, about thirty miles 
above Fort Laramie, where this stream issues 
from the base of the Black-hill; from thence due 
south to the Arkansas river; thence along our es- 
tablished boundaries to the western line of the 
state of Missouri, to the place of beginning. This 
would give the United States all the agricultural 
lands south of the Missouri river that are consid- 
ered exclusively Indian territory. . . . 

"The force of circumstances will soon compel 
the government to adopt some plan by which the 
fine a5?ricnltural lands (that form a large portion 
of Nebraska) will be thrown open to that class of 



S39] Malin: Indian Policy and Westward Expansion 89 



American citizens that have always been found 
on our frontiers, forming as they do a connecting 
link between the civilized and savage life. The 
state south of the Missouri river is densely pop- 
ulated along the western border, there being a 
continuous range of farms immediately on the 
line. The same state of things existed only a few 
years since on the north side of the Missouri river, 
when the government was compelled to make what 
is known as the Tlatte Purchase,' and which is 
now the most populous and wealthy portion of the 
State.""^ 

He proposed that in the case of the more advanced tribes 
the head of a family should be granted one section of land ' 
which could not be sold for fifty years. He hoped that by that 
time these Indians would be sufficiently civilized that the 
whites could not take undue advantage of them and their 
holdings would be safe. This was somewhat of a departure 
from the generally accepted policy of consolidation within 
smaller limits, separated from direct contact with white 
population, but it must be remembered that this was to 
apply only to the most civilized tribes. It was injecting a 
new element into Indian policy, one that was to play a much 
larger part in the later history. In the case of the more 
backward tribes they should still be grouped further west in 
the northern and southern colonies. 

In the same year A. M. Coffee, the Indian Agent at the 
Osage Agency, discussed the same topic in his report. He 
seemed much concerned over the scanty results which were 
obtained in trying to civilize the Indians : 

"To remedy these evils, doubtless the most ef- 
fective plan would be to concentrate within nar- 
rower limits the tribes between whom and our 
government there are subsisting treaties, more 
specially those south of the Missouri and the 
Platte rivers, and north of the Cherokee boundary. 
These number in all not exceeding fifteen 
thousand, diffused over a territory of not less than 
ten thousand miles — a population less than is con- 



1" Sen. doc. No. 1. Is. 32C. pp. 322-26. Pub. doc. No. 613. 



90 



University of Kansas Humanistic Studies [340 



tained in some of the border counties in the state 
of Missouri of twenty-five miles square. 

"Besides the good consequences resulting to the 
Indian, it would throw open to the occupancy of 
the white man a large extent of fertile country, 
justly esteemed as among the richest and the most 
beautiful portions of the west."^^^ 

This early activity on the part of the Indian Department 
in preparing for the opening of the Nebraska Country really 
preceded the Nebraska movement itself as it was agitated in 
Congress. In its later stages it developed contemporary 
with and as a part of that movement. 

RIGHT OF WAY THROUGH COUNTRY OF PRAIRIE AND MOUN- 
TAIN TRIBES 

The factors which contributed to the modification of the 
Indian policy bore with particular force on the tribes located 
on or near the border of the Indian Country. They were so 
located that all the forces operated directly on them. This 
was not so true of the tribes occupying lands further west. 
There, none of the factors exerted so direct an influence and 
the one factor of the westward expansion of the frontier did 
not contribute to the problem except in an indirect manner. 
For these reasons the new Indian policy was formulated in 
respect to the border tribes at an earlier date than in respect 
to the prairie and mountain tribes. Yet the solution of the 
problem of the Indians of the far west was essential to the 
complete evolution of the new policy. In particular it was 
necessary for the development and protection of the central 
route to the Pacific and the emigration over that route. 

The country occupied by the western tribes was both 
prairie and mountain districts, high, dry, and with the mini- 
mum of vegetation. The Indians were among the most fierce 
and savage of the tribes of the country, and had had little 
contact with civiHzation. Their mode of living was of the 
simplest. Their food was for the most part the buffalo, deer, 
antelope, etc. ; only such game as the semi-arid prairies could 
furnish. Their clothing was almost solely the skins of the 



138 Sen. doc. No. 1. Is. 32C. p. 354. Pub. doc. Xo 613. 



341] Malin: Indian Policy and Westward Expansion 91 

same animals. They were scattered over a vast area and 
their contact with each other was so vague and indefinite 
that there had been no fixed boundaries estabhshed either 
by the Indians themselves or by the government. 

Through the country of these prairie and mountain tribes 
ran two great trails leading toward the Pacific. In the north 
central district was the Oregon and California Trail, which 
had been used on a large scale only since about 1843. In the 
south was the Santa Fe Trail, used as a great commercial 
route since about 1822. Almost the only contact which these 
Indians had with white civilization was through merchants, 
traders, emigrants, and military expeditions. " After 1848 
the enormous emigration to Oregon and California had raised 
serious questions in regard to free passage through the 
country and the killing of game. The coming of white men 
brought with it all the usual attending evils. The emigrants 
killed off the game in great quantities and within a very 
short time the Indians were short of food in many districts. 
As was usual under the circumstances the relations between 
the emigrants and the Indians were not without friction, and 
in case of Indian depredations, it was exceedingly difficult 
if not impossible to discover and punish the guilty tribes. 

FORT LARAMIE TREATY, 1851. THE NORTHWEST TRIBES 

The man who seems to have been most interested in this 
phase of the Indian relations was D. D. Mitchell, who had 
been Superintendent of Indian Affairs at St. Louis for some 
years. Before becoming Indian Superintendent he had been 
engaged in the fur trade and was particularly familiar ^^ith 
the Indians of that region. He knew the difficulties that 
had been experienced by the emigrants, and attacks on emi- 
grant trains, and appreciated the precarious condition of the 
Indians on account of the great scarcity of game. The In- 
dians were becoming more and more discontented, and the 
government was not in a position to handle the situation pro- 
perly until more definite treaty relations were established 
and the Indian boundaries fixed so that responsibihty could 
be placed for Indian depredations in any particular region. 
Superintendent Mitchell advised that the Indians of the 



92 



University of Kansas Humanistic Studies 



prairie and mountain tribes east of the Rocky Mountains 
and north of the Arkansas River should be called together 
and that a formal treaty should be made in the presence of 
all of the tribes. So in order to carry out his plan, he pre- 
pared a bill granting to the president the authority to make 
such a treaty and appropriating money to pay the expenses 
of its negotiation. This bill was endorsed by Orlando Brown, 
the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, and was submitted to 
David R. Atchison, the chairman of the Senate Committee 
on Indian Affairs. Atchison presented the bill from his com- 
mittee on 18 March, 1850, together with a report which con- 
firmed the representations of Superintendent Mitchell.^^® 
However, the bill was delayed on account of the slavery 
struggle then going on in Congress, and although it passed 
the Senate it did not receive consideration in the House dur- 
ing that session. Meanwhile Mitchell had felt so confident 
that it would pass, in view of the attitude of Congress and 
the wishes of President Tyler, that he made representations 
to the Indians accordingly. These of course he had to re- 
tract when the bill f ailed.^**^ 

In his annual report of 1850, Mitchell again recommended 
the treaty with the prairie and mountain Indians and in the 
next year the measure was carried. The Indians were called 
to meet at Fort Laramie on 1 September, 1851. He made the 
most careful preparations to make the conference a success 
and managed it himself, aided by Agent Fitzpatrick of the 
Upper Platte and Arkansas River Agency. The Superintend- 
ent's party also included Colonel Chambers, editor of the 
St. Louis Republican, and B. Gratz Brown, also of St. Louis. 
As Father De Smet had unusual influence with the Indians, 
he attended by special invitation of the Superintendent to 
aid in the conference.^^^ The Indians included in the con- 
ference were the Cheyennes and Arapahoes, the Sioux or 
Dahcotahs, the Gros-ventres, the Assiniboins, the Ankoras, 
the Crows, and the Shoshones or Snakes. The treaty was 



139 Senate Journal. Is. 31C. p. 221. Commissioner's report and documents are 
printed in Senate doc. No. 70. Sen. Misc. docs. Is. 31C. Pub. doc. No. 563. 
INIitchell's report. Sen. doc. No. 1. 2s. 31C. p. 47. Pub. doc. No. 587. 

"1 De Smet. Lije and Travels among the North American Indians. II, pp. 674 ff. 
and IV. p. 1565. 



S4-S] Malin: Indian Policy and Westward Expansion 93 

completed on 17 September, together with a new map of the 
country shov/ing the newly defined boundaries. This treaty 
provided that the Indians grant to the United States the 
right to establish roads and military and other posts in their 
country and that they abstain from all depredations on the 
whites passing through their country. The boundaries of 
the territory occupied by each of the tribes were defined for 
the first time. The government on its part distributed 
presents of goods among the Indians as a settlement of their 
grievances against the whites, and agreed to pay them 
$50,000 per year in annuities for a period of fifty years.^*- 

This treaty was ratified by the Senate on 24 May, 1852, 
with an amendment which must be ratified by the Indians 
before it could go into effect. The amendment provided that 
the annuities promised in the original treaty should be paid ^"^j 
for a period of only ten years instead of fifty. The ^ 
Cheyennes and Arapahoes, and the Sioux ratified the amend- 
ment during the summer of 1853, but it seems that the re- 
mainder of the tribes, the Gros-ventres, Assiniboins, 
Ankoras, Crows, and Shoshones did not.^*^ However, al- 
though the treaty was not legally completed by all the par- 
ties, the government considered itself bound by its provisions j 
and appropriated money regularly to carry them out.^** 

By this treaty Mitchell was laying the foundation for an 
Indian policy in the far west which coincided with the group- 
ing policy being developed further east. In the same report 
in which he described the Laramie treaty he explained his 
plans for future change among the prairie and mountain 
tribes. 

"As a means of turning their [Indian] atten- 
tion to Agriculture and grazing pursuits, I would 
recommend that a suitable section of the country, 
somewhere on the Missouri or its tributaries, be 
assigned to the half-breeds, who are becoming very 



142 Report of Supt. Mitchell. Sen. doc. No. 1. Is. 32C. pp. 288-90. Pub. doc. No. 
613. De Smet's account appears in his Life and Travels, II. pp. 674 ff, De Smet 
approved the treaty and held that the government did the best possible for the 
Indians. Larpenteur, in his Forty Years as a Fur Trader on the Upper Missouri, 
II. pp. 418-22, denounced the treaty unequivocally. 

143 Report of Agent Fitzpatrick 1852. Sen doc. No. 1. Is. 33C. pp. 366-71. Pub. 
doc. No. 690. 

144 11 U. S. statutes. Note p. 749. 



OJf. University of Kansas Humanistic Studies [^^^ 

numerous throughout the Indian country. ... A 
half-breed colony, properly located in the midst of 
the Indians, would form a semi-civilized nucleus 
around which the wild Indians would soon be 
drawn by necessity to assemble. . . . 

"Another half-breed colony of the same charac- 
ter should be established at some suitable point on 
the headwaters of the Arkansas. During the re- 
cent council at Fort Laramie I talked the matter 
over frequently with the half-breeds and the In- 
dians ; both parties v/ere delighted with the plan. . . . 

''Should the government determine to establish 
these half-breed colonies, I would earnestly recom- 
mend that they be located as far as possible from 
the ^reat thoroughfares leading to Nev/ Mexico, 
California and Oregon."^*^ 

In the Laramie treaty the immediate object was to pro- 
vide for the security and development of the central route 
to the Pacific. In this proposal the dominating idea behind 
the establishment of half-breed colonies was the grouping of 
the Indians into northern and southern colonies, as was being 
done with the border tribes, and the removal of the Indians 
from the country between them. Mitchell's purpose in his 
"talks" with the Indians was to try to accustom them to the 
idea of the colonization plan as well as to make arguments in 
support of his idea in his recommendations to his superiors 
and to Congress. 

FORT ATKINSON TREATY, 1853. SOUTHWEST TRIBES 

The Laramie treaty opened the central route to the Pacific 
through the country of the prairie and mountain tribes and 
estabhshed definite relations between these Indians as far 
south as the Arkansas River. In the country to the south 
and west of that river the tribes were in much the same 
condition, and through it ran the Santa Fe Trail. And an- 
other question which was becoming of greater and greater 
importance was railroads. Two of the proposed routes crossed 
this country. One from St. Louis followed the line of the 

W5 Sen. doc. No. 1. Is. 32C. pp. 324-26. Pub doc. No. 613. This proposal was 
endorsFd bv Commissioner Luke Lea in his report of 1852. Sen. doc. No. 1. Is. 
32 C. pp. 296. Pub. doc. No. 659. 



Malin: Indian Policy and Westward Expansion 95 

Santa Fe Trail. The other ran from Fort Smith to Santa 
Fe and then to the coast by about the same route as the first. 
Up to 1853 there had been no adequate agreements made 
with the tribes of the southwest, but in that year this phase 
of the new Indian poHcy was completed. Under instructions 
dated 5 May, 1853, Fitzpatrick of the Upper Platte River 
Agency was sent out to make a treaty of friendship with 
these Indians ; the Comanche, Kiowa and Apache. A treaty 
was concluded at Fort Atkinson^^^ on 27 July in accordance 
with the instructions. Article 3 is of particular interest in 
connection with the evolution of the general Indian policy, 
and is as follows : 

"Article 3. The aforesaid Indian tribes do also 
hereby fully acknowledge the right of the United 
States to lay off and mark out roads and highways, 
to make reservations of land necessary thereto — 
to locate depots — and to establish military and 
other posts within the territory inhabited by the 
said tribes ; and also to prescribe and enforce, in 
such manner as the President or Congress of the 
United States shall from time to time direct, rules 
and regulations to protect the rights of persons 
and property among the said Indian tribes. 

Fitzpatrick made his report in November and in it made 
a clear explanation of the real meaning of the above article : 

"The mere acknowledgment of a right of v/ay 
through their country was readily conceded, be- 
cause it had been long enjoyed ; but upon the sub- 
jects of military posts, and reservations of land, 
and hostilities against the Republic of Mexico, 
they were found to be far more tenacious. . . . 

"The same objections which operate, to a greater 
degree, against military locations, also induced 
them to oppose the reservations of land by the 
United States for depots and roads; but, in view ; 
of the fact that at no distant day the ivhole coun- 
try over tvhich those Indians noiv roam must be 
peopled by another and more enterprising race, and > 



Near the present site of Dodge City, 
10 U. S. Statutes 1013. 



Kansas. 



96 



University of Kansas Humanistic Studies 



also of the consideration that the channels of com- 
merce betiveen the east and the west will even- 
tually, in part at least, pass through their coun- 
try, it was regarded as incumbent as far as pos- 
sible, for any action the government might see 
proper to take upon the subject. Already the idea 
of a great central route to the Pacific by railicay 
has become deeply impressed upon the public 
mind; and while many courses are contemplated 
two of them at least are designed to pass through 
this section of the country. Should the results of 
explorations now in progress determine it thus, 
the acknoivledgynejit contained in this clause of the 
treaty may be found of inestimable value. It iviU 
afford all the concession necessary for locations, 
pre-emptions, reservations, and settlements, and 
avoid, besides, the enhanced costs of secondary 
treaties with those tribes. Moreover, it will open 
a rich vein of wealth in what is now a wilderness, 
and that, too, ^\ithout additional public burden. 
In this respect, therefore, these concessions can- 
not but be regarded as extremely fortunate. '''^^^ 

The underlying motives in making the Fort Atkinson 
treaty in this particular form are certainly sufficiently clear 
and impressive. Its provisions were designed to admit of 
the interpretation that they might be considered as grants 
of right of way for railroads and locations for settlements. 
The Laramie treaty contained practically the same pro\is- 
ions for the grant of right of way for roads and locations for 
military and other posts. It is evident that they also would 
be open to the same kind of an interpretation. Thus by these 
two great Indian treaties the two most practicable railroad 
routes to the Pacific were opened through the country of 
the prairie and mountain tribes. 

REALIZATION OF THE NEW POLICY: THIRD PHASE 

Having traced the evolution of the new Indian policy as it 
applied to the border tribes down to 1853 and as it was com- 
pleted for the prairie and mountain tribes, it only remains to 



118 Sen. doc. No. 1. pt. 1. Is. 33C. p. 363. Pub. doc. Xo. 690. The italics are the 
author's. The Fort Atkinson treaty was ratified with amendments 12 April, 1854. 
The Indians agreed to the amendments 21 July. The treaty was proclaimed 12 
February, 1855. 



SJf.?] Malin: Indian Policy and Westward Expansion 97 

trace the final steps in the fulfillment of the new policy as 
it was worked out in conjunction with the last stages of the 
movement to organize the Nebraska country. One of the 
most persistent objections to the organization of 
Nebraska made during the debates in Congress was that the 
country had been set aside permanently for the exclusive 
use of the Indians and had been guaranteed to them by 
treaties. The government therefore had no right to open it 
to settlement. Before the country could be legally opened 
the Indian title must be extinguished. In order to meet 
this objection an amendment had been made to the 
Richardson bill in 1853 to provide that no lands could be 
settled until the title had been legally extinguished."^ ! At 
that time Howard of Texas had led the opposition to the bill. 
He had also proposed that the boundary of the territory 
should be 39° 30' instead of 36° 30' in order to allow the 
Indians sufficient lands. Hall and Richardson defended the 
bill and insisted that Howard's interest was not for the wel- 
fare of the Indians but was to prevent the organization of 
Nebraska in order to block northern expansion and the cen- 
tral route for the Pacific railroad. Emigration to the Pacific 
would in that way be diverted to the south and the railroad 
would have to be built by the southern route. Texas Indians 
would be forced northward and that country would be opened 
to settlement along the railroad. This attempt on the part 
of southern interests to block the extinguishment of Indian 
title in the Nebraska country failed. Although the Richard- 
son bill to organize the territory was defeated, another bill 
was passed which authorized the president to negotiate with 
the Indian tribes west of the states of Missouri and Iowa for 
the purpose of extinguishing the Indian title to all or part of 
that country.^^^ 

The character of the Indian title in the Indian Country has 
already been explained.^^^ The only land legally held by the 
Indians in what is now Kansas and southern Nebraska was 



149 c. G. Is. 32C. p. 1116. 

150 Report of Comm. of Ind. Affs. Sen. doc. No. 1. pt. 1. Is. 33C. p. 249. Pub. 
doc. No. 690. 

151 See above, pp. 55, 57, and map, p. 56. 



98 



University of Kansas Humanistic Studies [3Ji-8 



in reality only a comparatively narrow strip along the east- 
ern border, except in the Kansas River Valley, where the 
Indian holdings extended somewhat over a hundred miles 
into the interior. By far the greatest part of the land had 
never been assigned to any tribe or tribes, although it was 
hunted over by the Indians of the region and especially the 
northern part which had been held by the Pawnees and was 
still occupied by them although they had relinquished their 
title in 1833. 

The prevailing ideas on the character of the Indian title 
in respect to the far western region were so vague and re- 
presented so grave a misunderstanding that Agent Fitz- 
patrick of the Upper Platte and Arkansas River Agency tried 
to clear up the matter somewhat in his report of 1853 : 

These prairie and mountain tribes do not occupy 
the same territory which they occupied fifty years 
ago. "It is a moving claim, a constantly shifting 
location, a vagabond right, and, at best, only 
amounting to the privilege of occupa7icy, and not 
to that of exclusion. . . . This migratory process 
has given to these Indian nations no title to exclude 
others. . . . Regarding therefore, the carelessly re- 
ceived opinion about the extinguishment of Indian 
title, as based upon false ideas of what that title 
is, and how it originates. . . I cannot avoid stat- 
ing candidly the objections which exist to its ex- 
tension. 

"The foregoing observations have been called 
forth by the fact that opposition might arise on 
that score to any act on the part of the govern- 
ment calculated to induce settlement in what is 
known as Indian Territory.' "^^^ 

In accordance with the act of Congress of 1853 Manypenny, 
the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, made a preliminary visit 
to the Indians of the border during the summer to explain 
to them the purpose of the government. "With a few ex- 
ceptions," he reported, "the Indians were opposed to sell- 
ing any part of their lands" as the people from the states 
had for some time been going into the territory exploring 



1S2 Sen. doc. No. 1. pt. 1. Is. 33C. p. 366-71. Pub. doc. No. 690. 



Malin: Indian Policy and Westward Expansion 



99 



with a view to making locations for settlements and seriously- 
excited the Indians.i^^ 

In the same report he went on to recommend the organiza- 
tion of the territory : 

I i "The acquisition of Texas, New Mexico and 
I our Pacific possessions, and the vast annual emi- 
I gration which passes through the Indian country 
I and over the Indian reservations, on its journey 
I thither, and which was not anticipated at the time 
the Indians were located there, rendered it abso- 
lutely necessary that they be placed out of the paths 
of the emigrants as far as possible. The inter- 
ests of both require it. . . . 

"in my judgment, the interests of the Indians 
require that a civilized government be immediately 
organized in the territory. . . . 

"In the annual report of November 30, 1848, the 
Commissioner of Indian Affairs suggested the pol- 
icy of procuring and keeping open portions of the 
lands west of Missouri and Iowa, for the egress 
and expansion of our own population ; and the same 
measure has been urged in several successive an- 
nual reports. The necessity of opening an ample 
western outlet for our rapidly increasing popula- 
tion, seems to have been clearly foreseen by this 
department. The negotiations with the Indians 
who will have to be disturbed, and the arrange- 
ments for their peaceful and comfortable reloca- 
tion, requiring time and deliberation, it is to be re- 
gretted that the authority and the means for ac- 
complishing the object were not given more in ad- 
vance of the exigency which has occured, and which 
appears to require proceedings of a more precipi- 
tate character than should have been permitted to 
become necessary. 

"Objections have been urged to the organiza- 
tion of a civil government in the Indian country; 
but those that cannot be overcome are not to be 
compared to the advantages which will flow to the 
Indians from such a measure, with treaties to con- 
form to the new order of things, and suitable laws 
for their protection. 

"In addition to this, the preparation of a large 



Ibid. p. 249. 



100 



U niversity of Kansas Humanistic Studies 



[350 



district of that country for settlement, by remov- 
ing the Indians, would open up, in a most desir- 
able locality, homes for the enterprising and hardy 
pioneers who are ready to occupy it, and by their 
energies speedily to found in it a state, the bene- 
ficial influences of which, from its position, would 
be of incalculable advantage to the Indian, as well 
as the government and the people of the United 
States/'^^* ^ 

He then pointed out that the money appropriated at the 
last session of Congress was not sufficient to carry out the 
negotiations for the extinguishment of the Indian title and 
asked that more money be appropriated at the next session. 
Furthermore he was not satisfied with the limited nature of 
the plans of the government and urged that authority be ex- 
tended so as to allow negotiations to be carried out with 
other tribes in "what is known as Nebraska." 

The Commissioner was supported in his recommendations 
by Agent Fitzpatrick, who had just secured the ratification 
by the prairie and mountain tribes in his district of the 
amendments to the Laramie Treaty. Fitzpatrick criticized 
the policy of consolidation of the Indians and keeping them 
at the expense of the government, both because of its cost 
and because he considered that it was really detrimental to 
the moral and material welfare of the Indians. He recom- 
mended : 

— such modifications in the 'intercourse laws' 
as will invite the residence of traders amongst 
them, and open the whole country to settlement. . . . 
The effect of so removing the harriers that now 
oppose the residence of our own citizens amongst 
them, as to afford inducements of preemption to 
settlers, would, I am satisfied, be in every way pro- 
ductive of good to the Indians themselves, and 
would, at the same time, yield to the hands of in- 
dustry and enterprise a large and valuable terri- 
tory, that now serves only as a disconnecting wil- 
derness between the States of the Pacific and At- 
lantic slopes."^^^ 



Ibid. pp. 251-52. The italics are the author's, 
i^'' Sen. doc. No. 1. pt. 1. Is. 33C. p. 366-71. Pub. doc. No. 690. The itaUcs are the 
author's. 



S51] 3Ialin: Indian Policy and Westward Expansion 101 

On the question of consolidation of the Indians he differed 
from most of the others, but the end in view was the same : 
the opening of the Platte Valley to settlement and the con- 
necting of the Pacific Coast with the east. 

During the winter of 1853-54, while Congress was debat- 
ing the organization of Kansas and Nebraska and the ques- 
tion of the extension of slavery to those territories, the In- 
dian Department, under authorization of Congress, was busy 
making treaties with the Indians to extinguish the Indian 
title within the limits of the proposed territories. The fol- 
lowing is the list of treaties which were made, together with 
their dates of conclusion, ratification, and proclamation : 











Pro- 


Tribe 


Treaty Concluded 


Ratified 


claimed 


Ottoe and Missouri 


15 March 


1854 


17 April 


21 June 


Omaha 


16 March 


1854 


17 April 


21 June 


Delaware 


6 May 


1854 


11 July 


17 July 


Shawnee 


10 May 


1854 


2 Aug. 


2 Nov. 


Iowa 


17 May 


1854 


11 July 


17 July 


Sac and Fox of Mo. 


18 May 


1854 


11 July 


17 July 


Kickapoo 


18 May 


1854 


11 July 


17 July 


Kaskasia, Peoria, 










Wea and Piankeshaw 


30 May 


1854 


2 Aug. 


10 Aug. 


Miami 


5 June 


1854 


4 Aug. 


4 Aug. 


Other treaties were 


recommended 


to complete 


the ex- 



tinguishment of Indian title, but these were all that were 
immediately necessary.^'^ These treaties ceded to the gov- 
ernment practically all the territory in the eastern part of 
the present states of Kansas and Nebraska except some large 
tracts in the Kansas River Valley. However, later treaties 
'ceded those lands within a short time, leaving only a few 
small Indian reservations. 

Besides the cession of lands another feature of these 
treaties deserves notice in connection with the railroad move- 
ment. In each of them there were clauses providing that in 
every case where the Indians were allowed to withhold any 



156 Report of Comm. of Ind. Afls. 1854. Sen. doc. No. 1. 2s. 33C.pp. 213-15. Pub. 
doc. No. 777. This document gives a report of the negotiations, Kappler, Indian 
Affairs, Laws and Treaties. II. pp. 451-78. Pub. doc. No. 4254. or U. S. Statutes 
gives the texts of the treaties and the dates. 




MAP THREE 

Land to Which Indian Title Was Extinguished by 5 June, 1854 

Land held by Indians by perpetual treaty 

g-uarantee. SOUTHERN COLONY. 
Land held by g-overnment free from Indian title. 
Land held by Indians by orig-inal title and without 
any perpetual guarantees. NORTHERN COLONY. 
Land affected by Fort Laramie and Fort Atkinson 
treaties by which the Indians g-ranted right of 
way for roads and military and other posts. 



NO Dt) 76 MISSISSIPPt VALL£r 



35S] Malin: Indian Policy and Westward Expansion 103 



parts of their lands as reservations, all roads, highways, 
and railroads which might be constructed should have, when 
necessary, the right of way through such reservations. In 
other words railroad enterprises were not to be blocked in 
the future in any part of this country by the fact that the 
Indian title had not been extinguished. This group of 
treaties was the first to include definitely such concessions. 
The nearest to it had been the Laramie treaty and the Fort 
Atkinson treaty, both of which had secured recognition of 
the right to build roads through the Indian Country. It 
has been pointed out how in the latter treaty this provision 
had been purposely designed to allow of a broader interpre- 
tation should it be necessary in the future to permit the build- 
ing of a railroad through the Indian Country to the Pacific. 

Now all the difficulties which had been in the way of the 
organization of Nebraska were removed so far as the Indians 
were concerned. Practically all of the country included in 
the present state of Kansas and all of Nebraska south of the 
Platte, together with the eastern part of the state north of 
it, was ready for settlement. All of the above treaties save 
one had been concluded before the passage of the Kansas- 
Nebraska Act. They were the realization of the policy which 
was outlined by the Commissioner of Indian Affairs in 1848 
and urged continuously by the department for the six years 
following. That policy had been to group the Indians into 
two colonies, a northern and a southern, and to open the 
country between the two colonies to white settlement. The 
Indians were now arranged in the two great groups as plan- 
ned. The southern group was located in what is now the 
state of Oklahoma, and the northern group comprised what 
is now the Dakotas.^^^ The country between them in which 
the Indian title had been extinguished was now included, by 
the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, in two territories, 
Kansas and Nebraska, and connected the east and the west 
in one continuous line of organized states and territories. 



157 -pj^Q territory of Nebraska included all the territory from the fortieth parallel 
north to the international line, and thus included the northern group. However, this 
northern group was detached from Nebraska in 1861 when the Territory of Dakota 
was organized. 



University of Kansas Humanistic Studies 



[354 



Eventually they were more closely bound together by the 
building of the Pacific railroad through this newly organ- 
ized territory by the route of the Platte Valley and South 
Pass. To continue the figure used in the beginning, this was 
a third wedge driven through the Indian Country. It was 
to spread northward and southward in the near future until 
finally the last of the Indian Country was opened to white 
settlement and organized into states. 



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